Companies save millions through cleaner production

May 08, 2013

Today we explore how sadolin paints recycles waste in an effort to rid the environment of toxic residues.

 By Francis Kagolo

Until World Environment Day, June 5, in a campaign, Save Lake Victoria, Vision Group media platforms is running investigative articles, programmes and commentaries highlighting the irresponsible human activities threatening the world’s largest fresh water lake.Today we explore how sadolin  paints recycles waste in an effort to rid the environment of toxic residues.


Peter Wankulu, 73, has fond memories of Lake Victoria, having grown up in the early 1940s when, according to him, the lake still stretched up to areas like Nakawa junction on Jinja Road.

Wankulu would join other teenagers to swim in the Victoria waters, because the lake was clean without toxins then.

Today, Wankulu is not only disappointed by what remains of the world’s second largest fresh water body, but is also bitter that the lake has been polluted to levels where it is no longer fit for swimming.

“I used to see boats sailing from Luzira to Kinnawattaka. Due to unabated pollution from factories, our lake is not as it was when I was a youth, 50 years ago,” he recalls.

As Wankulu argues, the volume of toxic effluent released by industries into Lake Victoria has left the lake algae-coated with dwindling fish stocks.

Industrialists adamant

However, Dr. John Wasswa, a senior lecturer of environmental chemistry at Makerere University, explains that construction of industries in the Lake Victoria basin is not the problem.

To him, the problem is that our industrialists are so adamant that they reject the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) guidelines to protect the environment and achieve cleaner production.

With cleaner production, factories and other businesses like hotels are expected to adopt strategies to maximise resources without compromising the environment. It includes measures like preventing pollution and minimising waste.


A Sadolin Paints’ employee treats waste water with aluminium sulphate powder to enable colour pigment separation from water

Cutting costs
However, most industrialists argue that it is costly investing in cleaner production.

Yet, some companies that welcomed the Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP) programme to reduce pollution in Lake Victoria have not only cut on their waste but also saved millions of shillings in the process.

For instance, Sadolin, a paint manufacturing plant in Industrial Area, Kampala, has cut its water bills by almost half after it started recycling waste, instead of pouring it in trenches.

According to Sadolin’s production manager Nelson Okulo, initially the company used to pour its waste water into trenches, a practice that would pollute soils and water sources.

“Waste water from factories like those that make paint, contains chemicals that are dangerous to the eco-system. They pollute the soils and affect aquatic organisms, including fish,” explains a NEMA official.

She adds that this makes food like yams become cancerous.

The RECP programme, which targets factories in the Lake Victoria basin, is part of the Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project, which aims at reversing environmental degradation to stabilise the lake’s dying ecosystem.

Okulo explains that the company decided to join the RECP programme after receiving complaints over pollution. They stopped pouring wastewater into trenches and embarked on recycling and re-using it to manufacture gloss paint.

“We used to work under horrible conditions with a stench from the trenches. There is no smell now,” Twalibu Mukuye, a boda-boda rider at a stage opposite Sadolin, says.

This has also reduced water and soil pollutions, according to officials at the factory.

Besides the environmental benefits, the factory quality manager, Jimmy Mukalazi, says they have ended up saving millions of shillings in the process of saving the lake.

For instance, recycling and re-using wastewater has cut their water bills by almost half, saving over sh1.6m annually.

Other companies like Crown Beverages, Kakira Sugar Works and Igara Tea Factories, among others that have welcomed RECP, have also recorded enormous savings, through adoption of varying strategies to reduce pollutant air emissions and effluent.

Crown Beverages’ environment officer Joseph Tumanyaye reported annual savings worth over $7,590 (about sh19.3m) after investing $1,200 (about sh3m) on new valves to reduce boiler fuel and air emissions.

The company also replaced three diesel forklifts with electrical ones, which do not emit pollutants at a cost of $173,207 (about sh441.8m) to reduce air emissions.

In the process, they are saving $51,509 (about sh131.3m) annually, mainly on diesel that the old forklifts would require.

Simple mathematics shows they will recoup their investment in three years and continue making profits.

This has controlled boiler fumes from the factory, reducing air emission by over 2%. Other savings have accrued from recycling and re-using wastewater for washing crates and bottles, among other strategies.

“At first we thought RECP was about saving the environment and Lake Victoria’s ecosystem only, but it has given us enormous financial benefits in terms of materials, energy and water, plus reduced waste handling charges, and replacement costs for iron sheets and floor,” Tumanyaye explains.

Silver Sebagala, the UCPC director, says besides reducing pollution, companies would save a lot of money if they adopted environment-friendly cleaner production techniques.

“It is due to lack of knowledge that companies continue polluting Lake Victoria and other eco-systems. Pollution would reduce if industrialists realised that they can save a lot of money from investing in friendly technologies,” he says.

According to Sebagala, cleaner production would even involve simple measures like substitution of toxic and hazardous materials, process modifications and reuse of waste products.

“The eventual goal of cleaner production is to achieve a ‘closed loop’ operation in which all excess materials are recycled,” Sebagala says.

He explains that this will lead to reduced waste, recovery of valuable by-products, improved environmental performance, increased resource productivity, increased efficiency and lower energy consumption.

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