FINANCIAL BENEFITS

One of the primary drivers for companies implementing waste minimisation options was the incentive of achieving savings. Implementing waste minimisation options led to improved process efficiency for the companies as well as reductions in costs.

5.8.1 Hypothesis

It was proposed that the size of a company would not be the most important factor determining the amount of savings achieved by individual companies.

5.8.2 Savings Achieved

The most common areas of wastage identified during waste minimisation assessments and site visits were excessive water consumption and loss of chemicals due to dragout and spills. These problems were mainly a result of poor housekeeping practices. This was found to be related to worker education. The implementation of options has resulted in significant financial savings for companies. Club members who have implemented options were requested to report back on any resultant savings achieved, at each club meeting. Nineteen companies have reported the implementation of options, but only sixteen have quantified the resultant savings. Lists of options implemented by each company are provided in Appendix 9.

The characteristics of the nineteen companies are presented in Table 5.7.

Table 5.7: Company Characteristics

Company Description Number of Employees

A Manufacturer 800

B Job Shop 14

C Job Shop 10

D Job Shop 50

E Job Shop 10

F Manufacturer 80

G Manufacturer 26

H Manufacturer 190

I Manufacturer 350

J Job Shop 30

K Job Shop 7

L Job Shop 9

M Job Shop 37

N Manufacturer 300

0 Job Shop 6

P _{Job Shop 18}

Q Manufacturer 24

R Job Shop 80

S Job Shop 10

The annual savings achieved in water, chemicals, effluent disposal, energy, and waste disposal costs by sixteen companies are presented in Table 5.8. These figures were obtained from feedback during meetings, site visits, and surveys. A dash indicates that the savings in that category were not reported or not quantified.

Table 5.8: Annual Savings Reported by 16 Companies as at November 2000

Company Water Chemicals Metals Effluent Energy Waste Total

Disposal

(R/y) (R/y) (R/y) (RIy) (RIy) (R/y) ( R/y)

A 33000 110000 143000

B 600 13 200 13800

C 5500 110000 88000 203500

D 59400 68400 36520 33000 197320

E 7500 5060 12560

F 8000 24750 5500 38250

G 11 000 55000 66000

H #777 601 168630 99880 78870 30910 1 155 891

I 8668 10263 33600 52531

J 17300 30800 12100 33000 16864 1 10064

K 330 330

L 550 220 770

M 4770 4770

N 40 970 1010

0 550 550

P 1000 88000 89000

TOTAL 161548.5 1108934 180730 177507 287430 30910 2089346 tiThe chemical savings reported for this company include the savings achieved by changing the type of oil used in the manufacturing process, and therefore does not imply that the company was consuming excessive amounts of chemicals.

As can be seen from Table 5.8, an emphasis was placed on the reduction of water and chemical consumption. While this leads to reductions in effluent concentrations and volumes, a number of companies have not quantified that resultant saving. The reported savings are graphically represented in Figure 5.4. These savings are representative of the club's efforts but do not reflect the total cost savings achieved as a number of companies have not quantified all resultant savings.

The highest combined financial saving was achieved in chemical costs as illustrated in Figure 5.4.

As mentioned in Chapter 3, section 3.2, the South African metal finishing industry is exposed to world prices when it comes to chemicals and metals. Therefore costs of chemicals are high. Thus there are considerable savings to be made by reducing chemical consumption. Savings in energy are the next highest followed by water and effluent. While significant reductions in water consumption

have been made, water is relatively inexpensive in South Africa. Therefore great quantities must be saved to achieve a substantial financial saving.

Water

Energy 15%

Effluent Other

10010 2%

Metals

... 1IIIIIIlIII'"

9%

Water

10010

Chemicals 54%

Figure 5.4: Breakdown of Financial Savings Achieved by 16 Metal Finishing Oub Members by November 2000

The savings in water costs were mainly achieved through better process control and improved housekeeping. Regulating fiowrates in rinse tanks and monitoring water use resulted in substantial reductions in water costs. For some companies, it was possible to alter rinsing configurations so that less water was used. The most favoured option for achieving this was introducing counterflow and cascade rinsing to replace single overflow rinses.

Chemicals

Due to a lack of understanding of the chemistry of process baths, and insufficient monitoring of chemical additions, most companies used far more chemicals than was required by their processes.

Companies relied on chemical suppliers for dosing instructions and usually followed this closely.

The typical compositions for each type of process bath were available in manuals and handbooks.

Therefore by simply, calculating the correct amount needed, and ensuring that

this

was used, significant savings in chemical costs were achieved. The reduction of dragout, prevention of spills, and the increase of drainage times contributed considerably to most companies' chemical savings.

This in

^turn

reduced effluent treatment and disposal costs. Reducing the amount of proprietary

chemicals lost to effluent reduced the quantity of treatment chemicals required, which lead to further

savings in chemical consumption.

Effluent

Reduced water consumption resulted in a reduction in effluent volumes. The reduction of chemical consumption and chemical loss due to dragout resulted in reduced toxicity of effluent and subsequently considerable effluent treatment savings.

Energy

Energy consumption has not been of as much concern to club members as water and chemicals have been. Metal fmishers are generally not big consumers of energy. Energy is used mainly for heating process baths, and in drying ovens. However, a number of companies have reduced their energy consumption by improved process control and monitoring. Two companies (A and H) achieved substantial energy savings from power factor corrections.

Total Annual Savings

The combined reported annual club savings were in excess of R 2 million by November

2000.

The highest reported saving had been achieved by company H due to the reduction in chemical costs.

An attempt was made to obtain some comparison amongst the companies in terms of the savings achieved. This would ideally have been done with respect to annual turnover of each company, but this information was not made available during investigations. Therefore a simple comparison has been performed based on the size of each company in terms of number of employees. The results are listed in Table

5.9.

The third column in the table ranks the companies in descending order in terms of the savings per employee.

Table 5.9: Savings Achieved per Company Employee by November 2000

Company Number of Savings per employee Rank

Employees (R/employee)

C

10 20350 1

H

190 6084 2

P

18 4889 3

D

50 3946 4

J

30 3669 5

G

26 2539 6

E 10

1256 7

B

14 986 8

F

80 478 9

A

800 179

10

I

350 150

11

M

37 129 12

0

6 92

13

L

9 86 14

K

7 47 15

N

300 3 16

5.8.3 Discussion

Of the sixteen companies that reported savings, twelve were SMEs. The highest saving per employee was achieved by a company with 10 employees. These results show that there has been great potential for reducing waste at SMEs. Housekeeping practices at the larger companies were observed to be generally satisfactory. This was generally not true of the SMEs. As a result, most of the options identified involved improved housekeeping usually at minimal or no cost to the company making it easier for smaller companies to make improvements.