The Hindu Business Line : `Expired' FMCG products to power ACC kilns

Sourcing energy
This fiscal alone the business unit is expected to generate Rs 20-30 crore.
ACC has nominated two of its factories for this purpose

Mumbai June 23 One of the largest FMCG companies in the country has found a new means of disposal for its `expired' stocks of toothpaste, cosmetics and other products.

The FMCG company, which has accumulated tonnes of these products over the years and has been looking for an environmentally acceptable way to dump them, will now simply consign them to the kilns of India's largest cement maker ACC Ltd.

For ACC, this contract is the first of several for its new AFR (alternative fuel resources) business unit set up under the guidance of Swiss company Holcim.

"We are talking to scores of other FMCG companies, plastics manufacturers and solid waste generators such as hospitals," said Mr Sumit Banerjee, Managing Director, ACC Ltd.

This fiscal alone the business unit is expected to generate Rs 20-30 crore. "Currently, the business is very small, but has the potential to grow exponentially. Over a couple of years it could grow to Rs 100 crore," he said.

"It is a business activity we have got into in the last year. We are not only replacing coal with other fuels (petcoke, lignite, biomass, jatropha, etc) but also opening a new business stream in a small way. We are getting money to burn other people's wastes."

Often, as in the case of this FMCG company's products, the wastes don't particularly add to the calorific value, but ACC gets to earn more than its loss on account of depletion of calorific value. "We are also looking at it as an environmentally sustainable initiative," said Mr Banerjee.

ACC has nominated two of its factories for this purpose and soon this activity will be extended to every unit of the company.

"The beauty is that because of the length of our kilns and slow rotation, you get very high temperatures and high `residence time' and therefore you can burn many hazardous wastes." Wastes are first tested for toxicity in an experimental kiln before ACC agrees to incinerate them. ACC has already received approval from state Pollution Control Boards for this activity.

The AFR team is headed by a technical expert Mr R.K. Suri, who reports directly to the Managing Director.

This activity is very common in Europe, where all kinds of wastes meet their final and `safe' end in cement kilns, said Mr Banerjee.

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