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Description
The project responds to the diagnose issued based on company’s data and sustainable growth porgramme: low resistance of the company to negative effects related to climate changes; inefficient capacity; high usage of energy, water conspumtion, lack of use of rainwater in the buswashing process; lack of educational activities regarding Circular Economy.
The project envisages increasing the processing capacity of the car wash in accordance with the circular economy and reduction of energy consumption.
The goal of the project is to increase the ability of the Municipal Transport Company in Rzeszów to mitigate climat changes by expanding and adapting existing bus wash building for usage of rainwater and solar energy.
Municipal Transport Company (in terms of increased processing capacity and resources usage reduction) and residents of the region (by increased ecology awareness).
The project partner IDN from Norway is actively involved in educational activities. The partner’s commitment concerns participation in promotional events such as Conferences and webinars. Benefits of the partnership include exchange of experience, knowledge and best practices of increasing resistance to climate changes that had been implemented in Norway.
Summary of project results
The MPK bus wash station in Rzeszów did not meet the changing requirements for processing capacity (throughput) or modern environmental standards. The wash station, designed in the 1990s, failed to comply with several circular economy principles (CEP). For example, the original design did not consider high consumption of water, electricity, and thermal energy. This situation negatively impacted the environment and induced potential climate change.
The effects of the implemented Project, i.e., the expansion of the bus wash station, include:
- Increased processing capacity. After the reconstruction, the total throughput of the wash station will allow for seamless washing of all buses, enhancing the competitiveness of MPK Rzeszów.
- Reduction in the consumption of raw materials used by MPK in the bus washing process, such as water, electricity, and thermal energy.
- Reduction in waste materials generated from operations, such as decrease in wastewater through the use of a closed-loop water system.
- Increase in the amount of materials that can be reused, thanks to water recovery in the closed-loop system.
The Project will ensure:
- Reduction in wastewater through the implementation of a closed-loop technological water system with recovery at a level of 85%.
- Reduction in water drawn from the water supply network by using a system that supplements technological water with rainwater collected from the facility''s roofs.
- Reduction in heat drawn from the district heating network by using energy recovery through heat recuperator in the mechanical ventilation system, with a recovery efficiency of over 60%.
- Reduction in electricity drawn from the grid by utilizing renewable energy from photovoltaic panels installed on the facility''s roof.
The direct beneficiary of the Project is MPK Rzeszów, but the broader public can be considered as an indirect beneficiary too, because of improved quality of life.
Other examples of indirect beneficiaries are: industry representatives (through the effect of imitation), entities operating vehicle washes for transport companies, municipal transport companies from the Podkarpacie region and residents (through improved environmental quality).
Summary of bilateral results
The Norwegian Partner cooperated with MPK Rzeszów Sp. z o.o. both in conferences promoting our project and participated in a large event such as HACKATON, which was attended by school students from several schools in Rzeszów. In this event, activities in the field of broadly understood circular economy were promoted, as well as ecological solutions in Scandinavian countries were presented. The contacts made, as well as the knowledge gained from these meetings will pay off in the future.