Lloret de Mar has drawn up an ambitious plan, outside the drought decree, to reduce water consumption in this tourist town, which has the highest number of hotels in Catalonia only behind Barcelona.
One of the measures will be to connect tourist accommodation to the public reclaimed water network. Currently the municipality uses less than 10% of this resource treated at the Tordera Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). This year more than 3 million liters of regenerated water have been used.
This resource is currently used in cleaning public roads, sewage, irrigation of garden areas, pitch and putt, for fire trucks and forestry defense associations.
This year the municipality has incorporated new connection points to the regenerated water network in the Fenals area, a fact that has allowed it to increase the use of this resource for public uses and generate drinking water savings of 23% in one year. for these chapters. In high season, up to 39,000 liters of water are required per day.
In 2024 we want to grow the network in the Rieral area, with new connection points. An intervention, which according to the Lloret City Council, is pending a prior intervention that the ACA must carry out in this area.
One of the measures that would mean significant savings would be the connection of tourist accommodation – in Lloret alone there are 120 hotels with 29,000 beds – to the public reclaimed water network. The Generalitat has opened a call for aid that offers accommodation the possibility of presenting their projects to reduce water consumption through reuse. A measure that contemplates up to one million euros per company.
If approved, hotels in the areas of Lloret de Mar where this network has already arrived could use it for cleaning outdoor areas and watering garden areas, among other uses. The Turisme Business Board estimates that the initiative would save a hotel between 35% and 40% in water consumption.
A sector, the hotel industry, that has already carried out actions to reduce consumption. More than 50% of the destination’s hotel rooms have Bioscore certification, a seal that recognizes those companies that strive to reduce their environmental impact and promote sustainable practices in water consumption, waste management or sustainable mobility, among others.
Hotels with the Bioscore seal would have generated, according to the City Council, water savings between 30% and 40%, and currently record average consumption of between 120 to 150 liters per person per day.
The vice president of the Turisme Business Roundtable, Enric Dotras, explains that the private sector of Lloret is fully aware of the need to implement sustainable water consumption. He emphasizes that tourist establishments, campsites, apartments and “notably hotels” are already implementing measures to significantly reduce their water consumption.
The actions include the reduction of the water level in swimming pools and the flow of taps and showers, the replacement of shower diffusers to reduce the volume of water per minute, toilet cisterns with two buttons to limit their capacity or washing machines, replacing bathtubs with shower trays or washing machines in the laundry service with maximum efficiency and low water consumption.
With all these actions, the City Council wants to drastically reduce water consumption per inhabitant per day to below 200 liters in the next five years. All of this regardless of the measures that the ACA may apply in the near future.
“Our objective must be to reduce the average water consumption per person well below the maximums set today by the ACA,” explains the mayor of Lloret, Adrià Lamelas, who believes that “long-term measures” must be applied now. which understands that drought episodes will become more and more frequent.
