Environment

Sustainable development: environmental issues

‘Zero waste’ producer

Over the last decade over 30% of all investments have been directly related to environmental projects and we are proud to state that we are a ‘zero waste’ producer.

Certified: ISO 14001

The environmental management systems of the two plants have been certified as complying with the ISO 14001 standard.

Recycling: A major contribution to the environmental protection

By recycling secondary raw materials, not only do we make a major contribution to the environmental protection of limited resources, we also produce metal in a very efficient way, resulting in significant energy savings.

Minimum dust and fume emissions

All fine and dusty materials are treated in a special ‘dust’ hall to avoid dust floating in the air. Coarse materials are stored outside on impermeable soil (concrete). Sprinklers constantly humidify the storage yard to keep dust emission to a minimum.

All rainwater is collected and used for slag granulation. Any excess water is processed in the waste water treatment plant by physicochemical purification and discharged.

In the foundry all furnaces are enclosed in order to avoid dust and fume emissions in the work place. In the Pb/Sn plant all melting pots are also encapsulated and equipped with an accompanying exhaust system.  The vacuum furnaces in the Pb/Sn plant are completely gastight installations, which means that they cannot release any kind of dust or fume emissions.
The off gases are purified by means of cloth filters. The collected dust of all filters is pneumatically transported and stored into silos. From there, the dust can be pneumatically injected into the furnaces for internal recycling, or it can be transferred to silo trucks. All dust manipulations take place in a completely closed system.