Water Conservation

EMC has a history of taking a conscientious approach to water use and conservation. EMC manufacturing facilities produce no industrial wastewater, and at its non-manufacturing facilities, EMC minimizes water use and carefully controls wastewater streams.

Since 2000, EMC’s onsite water treatment plant has supported the company’s headquarters building and software engineering facility, saving millions of gallons each year through water recycling. For employee drinking, EMC-owned and -operated facilities use filtered tap water, eliminating the environmental impact associated with the packaging, transporting, and disposal of bottled water. Most of the EMC filtered water systems have been in place since 1992.

No industrial wastewater

In its Franklin, Massachusetts manufacturing facility, EMC uses “zero-discharge,” closed-loop water systems in process cleaning areas and materials laboratories. This eliminates industrial wastewater discharge, conserving over 200,000 gallons per year. EMC does not use any water in manufacturing processes at its Apex, North Carolina and Cork, Ireland sites.

EMC water treatment plant

The water treatment plant at EMC uses self-distributed (rather than municipal) water systems to return clean water to the local ecosystem. It is one of the first major commercial projects in Massachusetts that reclaims "gray," treated wastewater from buildings and process equipment and then redirects and reuses it for cooling and sanitary purposes.

Water at the plant is treated three times before reuse. Rather than traditional chlorination, the third stage of the treatment process uses state-of-the-art, ultraviolet light purification. This effective, environmentally friendly process eliminates the need for onsite chlorine storage.

The water treatment plant has capacity to treat 83,500 gallons per day via a sequential batch reactor system. The system allows EMC to reclaim 100 percent of its water, a significant portion of which is continually recycled to support building systems. The remainder is returned to the ground where it recharges local aquifers. Although the water is clean enough to drink, it does not become part of the drinking supply.

During the plant’s construction, EMC applied the same focus on quality and reliability that it devotes to manufacturing its information storage systems. To support EMC research and development labs, which operate around the clock, the treatment plant too was built to function 24 hours per day. The plant features the same proactive alarm system that EMC uses in its facilities and includes phone home and component failover capabilities that ensure the same level of reliability and uptime that EMC provides to its customers.

Environmentally friendly cleaning products

To extend its environmental accountability, EMC requires that janitorial, cafeteria, and other suppliers use environmentally friendly products, especially those used in cleaning, which have the greatest potential of ending up in wastewater streams.