Page 158 - Shaping A Sustainable Future

After deciding on the direction, the team further water used and the electricity used. Less ice generation
investigated the feasibility of the second proposal. The will eventually lead to lower wastage and generation of
current fixed operating cost for its operation comprises: greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO ).
2
• Rental; The team proposed researching the consumers’
• Maintenance; perspective on how much ice is required. The team
• Air conditioning Service. also identified that some consumers prefer ice in their
drinks to make the drink less sweet. Hence, changing
All these three costs are paid to the landlord, ITE consumers’ behaviour to one of not having ice at all is
College East. The team noted that the charge under the not readily achievable.
maintenance portion takes up almost 70% of the overall
operating cost. Therefore, reducing the consumers’ ice In this research, the team started by looking into the
might help reduce the maintenance charge via reduced consumer perspective and drivers toward chilled drinks.
water and electricity consumption, with associated There were two parts to this research:
environmental benefits.
I. Effect of the number of ice cubes on a given amount
The team evaluated all the findings from the of water.
environmental review and decided to look into the
possibility of cutting down on the ice given to the II. The “satisfaction” of having how much ice in a cup is
consumers who purchase the non-commercially packed considered cold enough.
(self-made) drinks or can/bottle drinks. This would cut
the monthly maintenance charge and help the business The team first investigated the effect of temperature for
achieve a greener approach using fewer resources. SME a fixed volume of water with different percentages of ice
Management strongly supported this idea as they noted cube content. The investigation was standardised with
that quite a large amount of ice was thrown away after an initial water temperature of 6.0°C. The temperature
the drinks were consumed. was measured again 5 minutes later with a different ice
volume, as shown in Table 1.
During regular operation, for consumers who purchase
any chilled can or bottled drink from the stall, the staff Number of ice cubes The average temperature of
would automatically provide them with a full cup of ice, the water after 5 minutes
despite the drink being chilled in the fridge. It was also 100% -0.3 C
o
observed that within 6 hours in the food court, almost 75% -0.1 C
o
95% of customers who purchased the drink that came 50% +0.1 C
o
with ice discarded an estimated 75% of the ice. This 25% +1.6 C
o
mounted up to a considerable amount of waste. This 0% +10.8 C
o
will be a waste of the water used and the electricity
used to freeze the water into ice. Therefore, by cutting Table 1: Temperature of ice cubes added to 100 ml of water
down on the ice given, the enterprise will save on the at the chilled temperature of 6.0 C after 5 mins of the
o
addition of ice (using ice cubes from the drink stall).
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