The Hindu : Business : ACC’s eco-friendly waste management practices

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Wednesday, Jun 27, 2007
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Business

ACC’s eco-friendly waste management practices

Ramnath Subbu

In talks with
FMCG companies
Washeries for
pet coke set up

MUMBAI: In what is a small initiative but has the potential to grow to significant proportions in future, ACC, the cement major, has undertaken an activity over the last one year to help dispose of hazardous waste materials generated by several industries by burning them in its kilns.

The company has tied up with one of the largest fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies to dispose of its ‘expired’ stocks of toothpaste, cosmetics and other products. While on the one hand this helps the FMCG company dispose of tonnes of accumulated toxic products in an environment-friendly manner, for ACC this arrangement is among the first of several of its new alternative fuels and raw materials (AFR) business unit set up last year under the guidance from its majority shareholder, Holcim.

The AFR team is headed by technical expert, R. K. Suri, who reports directly to the managing director.

The company is in talks with several other FMCG companies and those generating solid waste like plastics, paints, paper and allied products, chemicals, rubber and plastics, automobile and auto ancillary and petrochemicals manufacturers and solid waste generators like hospitals for a safe way of disposing their waste. Sumit Banerjee, Managing Director, ACC, told The Hindu that in this fiscal, this business is expected to generate around Rs. 30 crore and this could go up to Rs. 100 c rore next year.

Two factories

ACC has initially nominated two factories for this purpose — Kymore in Madhya Pradesh and Gagal in Himachal Pradesh. The Madukkarai unit is also likely to start co-processing soon and in due course, this activity will be extended to all ACC kilns. The co-processing of the waste products does not add any calorific value to the kiln process, but the company will more than make up for this from the revenues generated from the activity.

Jatropha plantation

“This kind of waste disposal is common in Europe and we are in fact, getting money to burn other’s waste,” said Mr. Banerjee.

In the area of alternative fuels as alternatives to coal, ACC is experimenting with pet coke and is setting up washeries at four sites. The company has also initiated huge plantations of castor and jatropha. “In the last two years, we have planted hundreds of thousands of jatropha and castor trees which will start yielding in about three years.”

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