Nissan to save 21.6m litres of water

Nissan estimates that it is to save some 21.6 million litres of water this year through a new water conservation scheme.

A new recycling process installed at the manufacturer's Barcelona paint shop is expected to build on the 20 per cent reduction in water usage last year.

Water is filtered and reused onsite, reducing the amount of water sent to be purified by 4,000 litres an hour, while sediment build-up is also reduced through changes to the filtration system.

The system has been developed as part of the company's larger environmental agenda, the Nissan Green Programme 2010.

Inaugurated in 2006, the programme sets out a number of aims that that company hopes to achieve by the end of the decade.

One of the most important is its goal of cutting the carbon emissions of all its manufacturing plants by seven per cent compared to the 2005 output.