REDUCING WASTE THROUGH OUR PROCESS REVIEWS
As any other production facility, our daily work has an impact on our environment, and any improvements – big or small – are contributions to our shared goal of a greener future. 17-10-2023
Sustainable processes have been the foundation of the Saudi Arabia 2030 Vision since its inception.
In addition, the Saudi Green Initiative, SGI, plays a key role in achieving the global sustainability targets.
Through whole of-society action and investment, the Kingdom is taking decisive steps towards a greener and more sustainable future.
One of the SGI goals is to improve the quality of life and protect the environment to the benefit of future generations in Saudi Arabia.
At AVK SVMC, we want to live up to this vision, and have introduced a number of changes in our production processes. Our standard process for producing gate valves, butterfly valves, check valves and fire hydrants has many steps and as with any other process, there is waste.
Waste of material, waste of water, but in an attempt to minimise our waste as much as possible, we are reviewing each step to optimise wherever we can.
Steel shot blasting was the first process we decided to look into. Steel shot blasting is a common technique used to clean or perfect a steel surface to prepare for secondary finishing operations, such as product coating.
Basically, the technique consists of small pellet-type projectiles, often made from carbon steel, which are blasted onto the product to obtain the smooth surface. It is environmentally friendly in the way that there are no chemical products involved and no waste of valuable drinking water.
We now recycle the steel shot itself by filtering it after every use, so it can be reused in the following similar process. For our coating process, we use powder paint for some of the products while using a filtration system to absorb all the left-over powder to be reused.
Another important step is in testing of our isolation valves, where we use water to test every single one for leakages. This means we end up with a lot of wastewater, but with a recycle system draining and filtering the wastewater back to the tanks, this was an easy step to save a large amount of water.
Finally, for the production process of packing and shipping, we recycle the broken wooden pallets to create new ones. Recycling or reusing waste materials and objects can benefit us and our country in so many ways, particularly economically and environmentally.
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