A leading Food and Beverage company in Sri Lanka, situated in the Kelani river basin, supplying quality bottled drinks to the market decided to try out Cleaner Production at their manufacturing plant.

The company had a high level of productivity with a content workforce. However the company was facing grave wastewater treatment and disposal problems even with the operation of its state of the art effluent treatment and polishing facility. Though the out-put quality of water did meet the environment regulations it was not up to the expectations of the management. The company was very keen to reduce their overall production costs by reducing wastage of energy, water and other resources.

A comprehensive Cleaner Production assessment was carried out in the plant in order to identify the waste streams. The audit team studied the various processes in detail to identify the resources consumed at each process step and resulting wasteful outflows. As a result many opportunities for implementing Cleaner Production options came into light and a selected number of these solutions were implemented immediately. The company arrested the leaking of chemicals, mainly caustic soda from the bottle washing plant as an initial remedial step. This single action saved the company Rs. 360,000/= (US$ 3750) per annum.

The plant personnel started to recover sugar syrup previously wasted, to make a saving of Rs. 180,000/= (US$ 1875) per annum. As a further improvement they also optimized the usage of thermal energy, saving over Rs. 300,000/= (US$ 3125) per annum as a result of shutting down one boiler. The personnel in charge of the ice cream producing division of the company took action to recover ice cream mix, which was being wasted until that time and this one step saved the company Rs. 3 million (US$ 31,250) per annum.

In addition to the huge economic gains achieved by the company, the application of Cleaner Production further reduced the effluent load on the treatment plant. The success of the first comprehensive Cleaner Production audit has prompted the management to take further steps towards improving their operations. The company plans to recover the caustic soda discharged to the treatment plant through which they plan to save up to Rs. 2 million (US$ 21,000). They also plan on reducing water and energy consumption by at least 15% within the next few months. The company has taken another step forward and is in the process of getting an Environmental Management System in place to obtain ISO 14001 certification.