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This case study was prepared by the China Canada Cooperation Project in Cleaner Production |
Taiyuan
Chemical Plant— a case study in Cleaner Production
by Art Fitzgerald
September 2000
Taiyuan Chemical was selected as a case study for the Policies and Regulations component of the China-Canada Cooperation Project in Cleaner Production. It was selected primarily because it had already completed a cleaner production audit for two of its processes and because the plant is one of the major pollution sources in the city of Taiyuan. Moreover, Taiyuan City has been designated to become one of China’s 10 Clean Cities.
The plant has been using processes and technologies dating from the 1950s and 1960s and thus is very inefficient in terms of raw material use and energy consumption. It produces chlor-alkali, phenol, chlorobenzene, polyvinyl chloride, cyclohexane, and hexane di-acid. The Environmental Protection Division of the plant had participated in a Cleaner Production (CP) training course at the National Cleaner Production Center, and conducted an in-house CP audit of the hexane di-acid and chlorobenzene processes in 1994.
In September 1999 a six member China-Canada project study team reviewed the progress by plant personnel in implementing the CP measures identified in the two 1994 audits. The team found significant improvements that are attributable to the audits and their implementation, in the following areas.
Capacity building, training of staff, strengthening the mandate for environmental protection, and improving the management system
Operating procedures, and housekeeping and maintenance procedures have been put under closer supervision. As well, wages and rewards for workers have been tied to performance and the benefits of cleaner production. The Environmental Protection Division has been reorganized into an Environmental and Production Division. It retains the original mandate for pollutant discharges and has added responsibility for providing input to production management.
The plant has also established a ‘special task force’ system for environmental and production supervision. This structure includes two inspectors and one monitoring personnel for each of the eight hour shifts. Inspectors assume responsibility for overseeing production controls, environmental control facilities, and discharges; while monitoring personnel bear responsibility for issuing orders to correct deficiencies. They have the additional mandate to issue fines and penalties if out-of-order situations are not corrected within a specified time.
Implementation of the audits
Implementation has been based on the no-cost, low-cost and medium cost recommendations, in that order. Investments have been modest and benefits have been substantial, with short term returns on investments. For example, in the hexane di-acid plant an investment of 784,400 RMB for process improvements had a return on investment of 1.37 years. In another example, 877,000 RMB was invested in water recycling in the chlorobenzene plant. In one year, more than one million tons of water was saved, at a net savings of more than 1,300,000 RMB.
While this initial CP effort at Taiyuan Chemical has been successful, staff fully recognize that it is an ongoing effort. They have also identified that resources from outside the plant will be required to implement CP throughout the plant.
Link -- Taiyuan General Chemical Plant
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