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Businesses are often afraid of the word “environment.”
But the experience of the Czech Republic’s Kovohute Pribram
metal works shows that environmentally friendly methods can bring
benefits not only to the surrounding environment but also to the
company’s balance sheets and positioning in the enlarged
European market.
Kovohute a.s. is a joint stock company located in Pribram, a
town of 40,000 about 80 km from Prague. It recycles various products
with metal content, including used electronic appliances, and
manufactures some 2,000 products containing lead, antimony and
other non–ferrous metals. The company, which dates back
to 1786, is part of the Pribram’s long history as a mining-based
community, and its processing of silver and lead ores has exerted
considerable pressure on the environment. Pollution and growing
concern and protest from local people in the early 1990s were
followed by privatisation in 1994.
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Company representatives say the technology has
brought the plant up to European standards and has benefitted
the surrounding environment greatly. |
An environmental audit carried out together with a risk analysis
led to the decision for a substantial upgrade in technology. New
management made a conscious decision that the firm could remain
competitive in the EU market only by bringing an end to the environmental
damages wrought by inefficient processes and a high rate of pollution.
The company took a series of environmental measures, including amelioration
of the damage done.
A Varta blast furnace was built with a special after-burning
system and modern dust removal technology. Oxygen refining of
lead was introduced. An up-to date wastewater treatment plant
employing biotechnology was installed. Dust and intermediate products
are now captured and processed in rotary furnaces equipped with
natural gas and oxygen burners with efficient gas de-dusting.
Ground-level dust has been reduced through technology improvements
and road sprinkling; rain runoff is treated in the wastewater
treatment plant. Metallurgical activity nowadays is limited to
secondary lead-materials recycling, mainly of lead batteries.
Company representatives say the technology has brought the plant
up to European standards and has benefited the surrounding environment
greatly.
The company has followed up with the gradual introduction of
management systems for quality, environment and safety. The improvements
now work in concert as an integrated management system (IMS).
Over the past five years, some 60 percent of Kovohute’s
investments have been dedicated to improving its environmental
performance. The company’s management has made the environment
a priority and permanent goal. Kovohute’s lead emissions
are 1/300th to 1/500th of what they were in times 1973. Sulphur
dioxide (SO2) emissions have dropped to 1/30th their 1973- level.
In the mid 1990s, the factory wastewater that flows into the river
had 10 to 30 times more lead and cadmium in it. These days some
of the pollutant levels fall well below legal limits.
In December 2000 Kovohute Pribram a.s. was among the first 25
companies in the Czech Republic to win the Safe Company certificate.
It received a Health, Safety and Environment Award in 1998. It
was honoured at the seventh annual Health and Safe Environment
Awards, organised by the Business Leaders Forum foundation. It
was recognised for its contribution to improving the Czech Republic’s
recycling of vehicle batteries and was named Best Company of the
Town of Pribram by the local chamber of commerce.
This sustainability success story is from the
REC
Business and Environment Programme, and was made possible
by a project supported by the government of the Netherlands. |
