Lanxess India, the fully owned subsidiary of Lanxess AG, a global specialty chemicals company, has been acknowledged for its work in efficient waste management for the year 2015.

In a felicitation event held in Mumbai held in September, Lanxess India was conferred with two awards – ICC Aditya Birla Award for ‘Best Responsible Care Committed Company‘ and ICC Certificate Of Merit for ‚Efficient Waste Management‘. Dr Jacques Perez, MD and country representative, received the award on behalf of Lanxess India in the presence of other dignitaries from the chemical industry.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Perez said, “We thank the ICC jury for recognising the continued and sustained efforts of Lanxess India in offering products and solutions to address global megatrend challenges while contributing positively to the environment and society. Receiving such a prestigious award also reflects our commitment to responsible care.”

The company’s production processes are well integrated in a manner such that several byproducts in the product chain are fed back as raw materials for production of other compounds. The waste water post-treatment plant, which deploys RO membranes, evaporation and condensation is a good example of its commitment towards efficient waste management. Waste water minimisation is achieved with recovery and reuse of the waste water leading to zero discharge at its plant in Nagda, Madhya Pradesh.

As a role model, Lanxess has a 3.95 MW cogeneration plant running on bio-mass at Nagda reducing 70,000 MT of coal equivalent and 95,000 tons of CO2 per annum. At Jhagadia, off-gas (VOC) from the point and fugitive sources in production units and bulk storage units are collected and destroyed by incineration reducing VOC footprint. Waste heat from flue gas is utilised to generate steam, which is then used for production.

Lanxess says it has also substantially reduced its carbon footprint by commissioning a biomass (soya husk) based cogeneration plant in Nagda. The company has made several investments towards a state-of-the-art off-gas incinerator, liquid waste incineration facility with recovery of HCl and recovery of steam from waste heat, treatment of domestic effluent from Grasim colony for recovery of water for process use and waste water post-treatment plant (based on zero discharge concept), thus, adopting a Clean Development Mechanism for its production processes.

Over the years, the company has increasingly migrated from road to rail transportation (reaching up to 90% for Jhagadia) for export consignments up to port, thereby reducing Level 3 Carbon Emission in transportation.

Lanxess India has co-founded and is actively involved in a transport safety initiative ‘Nicer Globe’ for safe transportation of hazardous goods. It also has globally initiated along with other global companies in a program called Together for Sustainability (TfS) for improving sustainability in the supply chain.