Water scarcity is the main challenge of the 21st century in some regions of the world. The United Nations currently estimates that nearly 900 million people –17% of the world population – do not have access to clean drinking water. At Merck, the greatest water demand is attributable to production, for example for cooling, as process water or for exhaust air purification. Our aim is to use water as efficiently as possible, to reuse it if possible through circulation and, if necessary, to feed wastewater into the public sewer system pretreated in accordance with legal requirements.
In 2010, we used 17.9 million m³ of city water (2009: 15.9 million m³). The increase is attributable to positive economic developments. Furthermore, the volume of surface water that is used at Merck Serono in Geneva to generate energy increased. In addition, Merck Millipore’s water consumption was included in the figures for the first time in 2010. We conducted studies of the water consumption at two sites in Massachusetts. By analyzing the pattern of water use at the sites, we identified savings potential of 26%.
We get 30% of our fresh water from ground water, 49% from surface water and 21% from the public water supply. The largest share (85%) was withdrawn in Europe, 8% in Asia, Africa, Australasia, 6% in North America and 1% in Latin America. Merck produced a total volume of wastewater of 10.2 million m³ (2009: 8.9 million m³).
