Wastewater / Solid waste / Existing contamination

A part of the waste stream at ELANTAS PDG consists of water with a 20-percent organic substance contamination. To address this, the company started the “Evaporative Thermal Oxidizer” project in 2009, which resulted in the corresponding structural investment in 2010. Today the water is cleaned with phase separation, pH adjustment, and filtration. Nevertheless, the organic substance content in part still exceeds the approved limits.

We have initiated further optimization work and hope to successfully continue the work in 2011 to significantly reduce the waste volume.

Most ALTANA sites do not produce any wastewater streams with chemical contaminations. Only ELANTAS Beck India has noteworthy emissions, but operates a wastewater treatment system. The transfer in chemical oxygen demand (COD) was approximately 4.5 tons in 2010.

Some ALTANA sites are involved in soil and groundwater restoration work. A groundwater restoration is being carried out on the former premises of Wiedeking GmbH at BYK-Chemie in Kempen. This contamination had been known to the authorities since 1981.

Since then, a number of damage prevention measures have been implemented, including the closure of a tank farm for solvents, excavation of another tank farm with soil removal and disposal, and vacuum extraction.

The final restoration of the site will be accomplished with the construction of a hydraulic barrier. A number of restoration drillings have been performed for this purpose. The resulting water is cleaned with activated carbon.

The spread of BTX aromatics (benzol, toluol, xylol) and phenols was significantly reduced in the time from 1996 to 2010. Nevertheless, the restoration goals have not yet been achieved in Kempen.