Waste Management
Challenges and Commitments
GGC strives to reduce waste quantity and efficiently manage both hazardous and non-hazardous waste in the production process to lessen environmental impacts and resource shortage as well as help to reduce the Company’s costs relating to waste management.
Key Stakeholders
Employee
Community
Shareholder, Investor and Analyst
Government
Supplier and Business Partner
Customer
Goals
that goes to the landfill to
zero
Management Approach
Waste Management Guidelines
GRI 306-1 (2020), GRI 306-2 (2020)
The Company is committed to eliminating as much hazardous and non-hazardous waste from the production processes, maintenance and other activities as possible to maximize the use of resources throughout the value chain and reduce the amount of waste to a minimum, along with preventing and reducing potential impacts on the surrounding community and the environment. This includes waste of various waste sources, as well as waste generated from every step in the Company's production process. The effective waste management processes are based on the concept of the Circular Economy and in accordance with international standards, including the 3Rs approach, which consists of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Refuse.
3Rs Principle
In addition, the Company has established an action plan to control, inspect, and monitor waste management. from every factory regularly. It begins with collecting, storing, and transporting waste generated from the Company's activities to be delivered to the treatment and disposal facility certified by the Department of Industrial Works in accordance with the Ministry of Industry's announcement on the disposal of sewage or unused materials. The Company, then, arranges for tracking and reporting of waste information through the electronic waste transport supervision system (E-manifest) every time.
For more about our waste management projects, see the 2022 Integrated Sustainability Report at Integrated Sustainability Report 2022
- Recovery Oil Loss from Wastewater Project by separating the oil mixed in the wastewater from the distillation tower for Recovery and to be sold as a fuel mixture, which can generate income for the Company.
For More details about our waste management performance, see Performance Data
1. Material Improvement for Process Pipeline Project
GGC integrated the principle of Reduce, into the pipeline process that often encounters the Corrosion & Erosion incidents by changing materials used to manufacture pipes from stainless steel to PTFE-lined carbon steel in order to expand the functional life of the pipes from less than 5 years to more than 15 years. This resulted in decreasing waste generated from the pipeline process as well as reducing the cost of maintenance and operation by 900,000 Baht per one-time maintenance which is equal to 1.8 million Baht per year.
2. Increase of COD Treatment in the Wastewater Treatment System Efficiency Project
GGC integrated the principle of Reduce by developing a wastewater treatment system that can reduce the amount of COD in wastewater from operations to the acceptable COD level standard before accessing to central treatment system of the Industrial Estate of Thailand, which can save costs for COD treatment and disposal outside the plants as well as reduce the transport of wastewater for treatment and disposal, resulting in a reducing GHG emitted from transportation (Scope 3) by 0.187 tons of CO2 equivalent per one transport that equals 103.6 tons of CO2 equivalent per year. Moreover, GGC can reduce the cost of external wastewater treatment for 4.7 million THB per year when compared to last year figure.
3. Reuse of Insulation Project
GGC applied the principle of Reuse by separating insulation that can be reused out of other materials, which can be only treated or disposed of. Moreover, GGC has managed a proper containers for reusing purpose, resulting in reductions in the amount of waste generated and waste disposed to landfills by 100 percent.
4. Reprocess of Fatty Alcohol (FAOH) Project
GGC applied the principle of Recycle by restoring Fatty Alcohol (FAOH) materials that are in transitional grades to the production and fractionation processes in order to use them as materials to produce new products. This resulted in 296 tons of FAOH being brought back into production.
5. Improvement of the Cleaning Process in the Condenser of Stream Ejector within Glycerin Fractionation Unit
GGC applied the principle of Refuse to the cleaning process in the condenser of stream ejectors by prearranging a plan for cleaning tools used in the fractionation process as well as planning to use environmental-harmless chemicals in the cleaning process in order to reduce waste generated from the cleaning process and respond to the company’s environmental policy. This resulted in a cost saving of 0.55 million Baht per each cleaning process.