Clean Water Recycling
Serious environmental protection measures have been taken at Ulba Metallurgical Plant over the last 4 years. It is about fulfillment of the action plan on reduction of discharges into surface waters of Ulba.
Environmental protection activity of the enterprise is one of the main postulates of Ulba Metallurgical Plant activity.
The plan to switch to recycled water supply includes the areas of beryllium and tantalum operations, nitrogen-hydrogen-oxygen station, as well as the Kazakhstan Mint located on the territory of UMP. At the moment, water recycling schemes have already been launched in one of the tantalum operation shops, in the beryllium operation building and at the nitrogen-hydrogen-oxygen station.
Evgeny Chumin, Production Safety Director:
– Despite the fact that the project implementation did not bring direct economic effect in the form of cost reduction or profit increase, its significance for our enterprise remains extremely high – due to the environmental component. It allowed to reduce water withdrawal from natural sources, contributing to the conservation of water resources in the region, to demonstrate the effective application of the best available technologies in the field of water saving. According to the plan, in the future a number of other tantalum production shops will be switched to recycled water supply. Our goal is to completely eliminate discharges into the Ulba River from all operating productions of the plant.
The work on switching to recycled water supply has already given the first results – discharges into Ulba have decreased by 15.4%, discharge of pollutants has been reduced by 24 tons/year, or 10.2%.
