Georg Dirk speaks as Chief Guest at the World Environment Day to the Institution of Engineers (India):
The ENGINEER is at the forefront to protect our environment
The Regulator, the Government, has the obligation to set environmental standards to protect its population by protecting the environment and to create sustainable development.
The existing fear that the legislation which demands costly environmentally friendly processes will render the industry of the country with high environmental standards less competitive compared to those country with lower environmental standards has been proven wrong by the developed countries.
The Engineer has to put his mind to development of new technologies which would meet the requirements of the environmental standards in the most economic way and even allow to fulfill further improved standards.
This will only happen when implementation of such high environmental standards is strictly enforced. Self regulating by industry has been working slowly or not at all.
The realization of high environmental standards may progress in steps. Normally you would use the general waste mantra requesting:
- avoid waste production
- reduce waste production
- reuse the waste
- recycle the waste
- dispose of the waste
The Engineer has to work on all these levels. As long as it is easy and less costly to dispose of the waste than to avoid waste production, the environmental and economical incentives on all the steps in between are lost. Therefore it makes sense that the United Nations coined the phrase: “The Polluter Pays” and even more important: “The producer of a waste remains responsible for his waste from the cradle to the grave”, meaning that the responsibility of an industrial waste does not end at the producer´s factory gate even if the responsibility is subcontracted. Today we are here to celebrate World Environment Day. Unfortunately there is still too little to celebrate. The balance between success in creating sustainable development against destroying a so far healthy environment is heavily negative. We are destroying more than we are creating. I would suggest that this day should be renamed into World Environment Awareness Day. It is easy to talk about universal environmental problems and put a blame on abstract culprits. But the problems need to be resolved in our continent, our country, our state and town, in our workspace and home. So, it is best to ask oneself, what am I doing to protect the environment? I have done something, but also by far not enough. Looking again at the general waste mantra from the avoidance of waste to the disposal of waste, the international DIRK Group had some positive results and is working hard on others for which I would like to give some examples: 1) AVOID: Our international research program for avoiding the production of Fly Ash in Power stations by producing a low grade cement in the power station boiler instead of producing fly ash is on its way and we will be erecting a full scale installation soon. Using Fly Ash to replace cement in concrete saves unavoidable CO2 emissions whilst producing cement. Our Nashik POZZOCRETE plant has the ability to save 1 million MT of CO2 emission per year, simply by eliminating the necessity to produce the same amount of cement clinker. The same applies for the production of Pozzolan Portland Cement. The leading cement producers are aiming at using more and more Fly Ash in their cements to avoid more and more CO2 emissions. We at DIRK India are cooperating with AMBUJA Cements to reach a new maximum Fly Ash percentage in their cements. 2) REDUCE: In our European waste water treatment division: we are reducing the amount of sewage sludge produced in WWTW by 50% using Ultra Sound to enhance sludge digestion (and additionally producing methane fuel) 3) REUSE: In India: turning fly ash into partial cement replacement and producing a cement which can reduce the requirement of concrete by 30% (pilot plant operative in Nashik). In Europe: turning power station slag into expendable abrasive for surface cleaning. Process operative full scale since 1984. 4) RECYCLE: turning Fly Ash into artificial sand or light weight aggregate (pilot plant designed, finances arranged but project put on hold) 5) DISPOSE: use Fly Ash mixtures for safe disposal of toxic waste whilst immobilizing heavy metals which could leach in to the environment. Process under our RHENIPAL trade mark operative since 1989. All these examples were the result of our national and international engineering teams working hard for the benefit of our mother earth and our profits. But Industries like ours can only do development and research work either by getting public funding support, or to be allowed to earn an income from some successful waste transformation processes or to get paid by the waste producer. In this respect I have to highlight that in India we were neither getting public support nor were we allowed to make profit on a technology which earned India as a nation a huge amount of money. Environmental entrepreneurs should not be chased away by such a scenario. Coming back to our Nashik front door where DIRK is only involved in Fly Ash recycling. The product of fly ash processing = Pozzocrete has reduced the cost of concrete by 20 % all over India. The new cement type produced from processed fly ash branded as Ambuja HiRise, Active POZZOCRETE contains 35 % Fly Ash (the maximum permitted percentage according to Indian Standards) and makes it possible to use 30 % less concrete in a structure. You, the Engineers, will be able to understand what does this mean for the Indian nation which has a huge infrastructure demand for which concrete is the core ingredient. In any case, worldwide, concrete is used as the second to water on volume consumption basis. Over 2 billion MT of Portland Cement (the most important component in concrete) is used per annum reaching 10 billion MT by 2025. I give these figures to show what 30% less concrete actually means. In Nashik currently more than 70 % of the daily produced fresh dry fly ash is still simply disposed off into the outdated fly ash lagoons, although DIRK´s plant at Nashik with the capacity to recycle all Nashik Fly Ash is in place to produce these beneficial products. Today it is closed for lack of raw fly ash waste, simply by the will of the power generator. The consequences of this are explained in a DVD which I am happy to hand out to all of you later on. Nashik is at the brink to become a major power hub for energy, energy we all require. 2580 MW/h capacity are operative, planned or under construction. Each produced MW/h requires 6000 liters of water, 3000 liters more than in the developed countries. Why? Because water is misused by not providing the infrastructure for 100% fly ash collection and by not using the latest technologies (designed by you, the Engineers). On the Fly Ash collection side not installing state of the art mechanical ash collection systems. On the disposal side not using dense slurrying systems requiring only 50% of the water demand of lean slurry systems. In Nashik the outdated lean slurry system is still in use. Water was missing everywhere during the dry season this year and will be again missing during the next drought. Our planet is thirsty. Let us provide to man, animal and nature what they need. I fear that one day the great creator Lord Brahma will not stand it anymore watching us down here slowly destroying his wonderful work. He will ask Lord Shiva to destroy this planet with fire ……but who will deal with the ash?