Sustainability - key at Dutch hospital

Sustainability is an important part of the management of the BovenIJ hospital and is a part of the long-term policy plan and all underlying plans of the BovenIJ hospital. The BovenIJ hospital has signed the Green Deal, is a member of the Environmental Care Platform (MPZ) and achieved the gold level of the national Milieukeur quality mark in 2018.

Sustainability

As a result, major steps have been taken in recent years to achieve the various climate objectives that BovenIJ has set itself, including more sustainable energy management and the reduction of CO2 emissions. These objectives naturally also played an important role in the choice for a completely new flight type dishwasher.

To replace the existing flight type dishwasher from Wexiödisk / RHIMA, the new machine arrived at the beginning of 2020. The old machine had been used intensively for 19 years. Arch Prins explains: 

-The fact that the RHIMA machine has lasted no less than 19 years says something about the quality of the machine. It could last even longer, but in the context of sustainability, we also want to move away from central steam generation, which we still use today to heat the washing water in the dishwasher. And we also wanted a new dishwasher that supports this process, so that it does not require steam heating and that also recovers heat itself.

We got in touch with RHIMA, Wexiödisk’s dealer in Netherlands, and they told us that a new, environmentally friendly dishwasher, the WD-BS, would be launched. 

As a result, the BovenIJ hospital became the first Dutch hospital where the WD-BS flight type dishwasher was installed.

Reliable partner

- The fact that we ultimately chose RHIMA and not another supplier from the top segment, in addition to sustainability, price/quality ratio and ’total cost of ownership’, is of course also due to the experience we have gained with RHIMA in recent years”, according to Arch. -A step to choose a machine that is not yet on the market and for which no references are available, you only take with a reliable partner. And that is 
RHIMA for us.

30% less water use

Peter Huijsen, Head of Nutrition, talks about the advantages of the new machine:

-Because steam and power consumption are difficult to compare, we cannot yet say exactly what the new machine will yield us in terms of energy consumption. But we generate part of our own electricity with solar panels and we purchase green energy for the entire hospital.

"In terms of water consumption, we now realize
a saving of 30% and I notice that we also need
considerably less dishwasher detergent.

In addition, the employees of the dishwashing kitchen notice that the climate in the room has improved. Not only is this machine quieter, but this machine also makes more efficient use of the generated heat and also emits much less heat. -As a result, it is less hot and the relative humidity in the dishwashing area is also lower, which improves working conditions. By the way, we can easily adjust the speed of the machine via the digital display, on which we can also read the temperatures of the water tanks.

- These benefits and savings confirm that purchasing this dishwasher makes a significant contribution to our hospital’s sustainability ambitions. I am convinced that the machine will still be there in 20 years.

Facility Business Manager, Arch Prins