ing is based on a closed system and thus a regular fresh wa-
ter supply is superfluous.
At its Louisville site, BYK reduced drinking-water con-
sumption by around a third with the help of process optimi-
zations (from 271,600 to 185,200 cubic meters). Thanks
to a new cooling circuit system, the Schkopau site decreased
its consumption of surface water from 65,000 cubic meters
to 7,000 cubic meters.
By means of various measures, ACTEGA is also helping
conserve water resources. At its site in São Paulo, waste-
water from the lab is treated such that it can be used further
internally. And at its site in Lincolnton, the supplier of spe-
cial coatings, printing inks, and adhesives also optimized its
wastewater treatment. Instead of having the water used
to clean tanks, machines, and production rooms treated by
external service providers, ACTEGA does this itself now
using a new method. The liquids are cleansed of color residue
and solids before they are fed into the municipal sewer
system.
Further Waste Management Improvement
Optimization of waste management is also a central sus-
tainability target of the ALTANA Group. Therefore, a number
of recycling measures were taken in 2017.
For example, at its Güntersthal site ECKART utilizes zinc-
iron sludge from its Vetróz site as a source of zinc for its
own production. Furthermore, efficiency measures introduced
by the effect-pigment specialist in Germany decreased the
amount of so-called gold bronze scrap by 10 %. The remaining
waste is sold to third parties for smelting.
The specialist for insulation materials for the electric and
electronics industry ELANTAS further improved its waste
management by introducing a number of measures. At its
Ankleshwar site, the distillation apparatus was optimized
such that a substance is isolated and then can be used
again as an intermediate. In this way, ELANTAS reduced the
amount of disposable organic waste by 5 %.
At ELANTAS in Tongling, a method was developed for
recycling and reusing solvents from cleaning agents that
are used to clean raw-material transport containers. As a re-
sult, the amount of cleaning-solvent waste was reduced
by 80 %. Last but not least, the insulating material specialist
purchases raw materials in larger containers, which are
subsequently reused internally. As a consequence, around
600 small barrels that can only be used once become
superfluous each year.
88 Environment