By E. Kumar Sharma

Coromandel's K.A.Nair at the company's Vizag plant which used to be a sulphur hazard

For eco-watchers, it is a showpiece on the Coromandel coast. Molten sulphur and Malkapuram area in the eastern port city of Vishakhapatnam had little in common until recently, when Coromandel Fertilisers drew the linkage. Responding to complaints from locals and naval officers in the region on the sulphur dust pollution, the Chennai-based Murugappa-owned complex fertiliser manufacturer sent out a delegation of senior officers to Japan and South Korea scouting for pollution-free ways to handle sulphur. The result: investments of Rs 10.50 crore to set up molten sulphur handling facility, that helped not just solve the original problem, but led to cost savings by way of lower input wastage. ''We are benchmarking ourselves against global standards in environment management,'' says Ranvir Sain Nanda, 57, President and Managing Director of the company, which is currently working on ISO 14001 certification.

Spread across 500 acres, 5 kms from the Vishakhapatnam harbour, the concrete and metal within the green environs of the unit include a 1,200 tpd sulphuric acid plant, 400 tpd phosphatic acid plant, 2,000 tpd granulation trains, bagging plant, fluorine recovery unit, power generation units, ammonia storage terminal, jetty for handling solid-liquid raw materials, and an effluent treatment plant.

Driven by pressures to build efficiencies and to cut costs in an increasingly open economy, the company chose to put in initiatives that were both eco-friendly yet cost saving in the long run. Some of the major initiatives: in 1994, a Rs 3.20-crore fluorine recovery unit was set up and sulphuric acid plant revamped at a cost of Rs 4.50 crore; in 1997, a molten sulphur handling facility was created with an investment of Rs 10.50 crore; last year, pollution control equipment for a new complex were installed, and in year 2000 and 2001, invested a total of Rs 11 crore (Rs 5.5 crore each in 2000 and 2001) on a new scrubbing system was bought. In short between 1991 and 2001, it jumped to Rs 40.40 crore. Small wonder, then, that Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board Member Secretary, Tishya Chatterjee sees the company as a good example of a ''red category sector exhibiting green behaviour''.

The measures are already yielding results. According to K.A. Nair, 51, Vice-President (Manufacturing and Projects) of the company and incharge of the plant at Vishakhapatnam, the setting up of the four-stage scrubbing system has led to a reduction in ammonia emission from 800 ppm (parts per million) to less than 100 ppm. Economically, it made sense too, in that it means savings of 2 tonne per day of ammonia, and at Rs 12,000 per tonne of ammonia it would mean a saving of close to Rs 1 crore per year.

GUJARAT AMBUJA CEMENTS
Their Waste Is Their Wealth

By R. Chandrasekhar

GACL's A.C. Karnik at the rose garden intensive Kodinar plant

Roses blooming within a cement plant? There can't be a more glaring contradiction. Cement plants are known to be pollution-prone. Roses wilt when the surroundings are not clean. Yet, there are several green patches in the premises of Gujarat Ambuja Cements Ltd at Kodinar, Gujarat, in which 100 species of roses are nurtured throughout the year.

''When we set up a cement plant in 1986,'' says A.C. Karnik, Joint-President (Commercial) head of the plant, ''farmers in the 85 villages nearby were worried about the impending damage to their crop. We promised that we would adopt world-class standards of pollution control. The rose gardens dotting our 150 hectare premises are an evidence that our operating environment is clean.''

It is clean because, the dust is captured right at source and recycled into the production process. Safety is another issue that Karnik and his team are proud of. The fact that the workers' colony is located at less than a kilometre from the blast site and the company guest house is 200 meters from the mines is an indication of the high levels of safety that prevail at the plant. ''We undertake mining of limestone at zero blast,'' says Y. Raghavendra Rao, Joint-President in charge of mines.

Where the Kodinar plant scores is in the community development programmes it has undertaken in the 64 villages. One such programme is the Water Resources Development Programme, aiming at strengthening ground water levels and educating people about the recycling.

In fact, recycling is a mantra that the company practices with religious fervour. The company has set up a Sewage Water Reclamation Plant at the Kodinar, which converts 10 lakh litres of sewage water into 6 lakh litres of potable water for horticulture, farming and machine cooling. ''There is wealth in waste,'' says Karnik.

ICI
Painting'em Emerald Green

By Vinod Mahanta

Inderjit Mitra has to watch his step. If the 48-year old Manufacturing Manager of ICI messes up on any of the SHE (that's Safety, Health, and Environment) principles laid down by the company it will be, as is the MNC's practice, broadcast to all 17 plants in the Asia-Pac region. Mitra is in-charge of manufacturing at all of ICI's plants in India, including the one at Mohali. Like other manufacturing facilities of ICI, the one at Mohali has its own SHE guidelines, distilled from the company's global policy and with the objectives of zero harm and responsible care.

Each of the company's employees appends his signature to the SHE policy which is, if you look at it closely, actually quite simple: everything is looked at from the perspective of 'environmental burden'. Thus, the company first assesses the environmental impact of, say, a particular chemical and then works towards reducing this.

If it is specifics you are interested in, the focus at ICI is on reducing waste, protecting the environment, and environmental sustainability. Mitra doesn't put a word out of place as he says, ''If we are not focussed on the future, we will end up on the losing side''.

One of ICI's guidelines insists that the local management has to ensure that manufacturing facilities do not impact the physical environment in which they are located.

At Mohali, the production happens in a closed environment; there is no chance of any of the chemicals being used in the process to come into contact with the external environment; and all solvents used in the production of paints are recycled. ICI's Mohali facility is unique in the sense that it is a no-discharge plant: no pollutants or waste is discharged during the entire production process.

The plant also factors in the possibility of a fire or a spillage. A tank in the factory holds water for up to three hours of fire fighting. And the plant boasts a fire water containment system and spillage containment system (bunds) to hold water, to be used to extinguish a fire or spillage.

ICI has also done its bit to enhance the environment around the plant by developing a green belt in the 25 acre fallow belt around the plant. Now, that isn't something you expect from a company into paints.

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