Khanh Hoa Tea Company is a private company found in 1997 in tea cultivation zone of Ha Hoa District, Phu Tho Province. During operation, the Company regularly invests in increasing production capacity to meet the market demand. In 2006, the Company improved the production capacity to 2000 ton of tea/year with total employees of 160 persons, in which female accounts for 80%. The production in recent years has been increased, respectively 1199; 1248; 1359 in 2008 to 2010, and expected to reach 1500 tons in 2011.
In 2009, the Company received the support from the Ministry of Industry and Trade via the Cleaner Production in Industry Component (CPI) to conduct Cleaner Production Assessment and Application. The Company established a CP team led by Mr. Dao Quang Viet – Deputy Director of the company and other 7 members to assess the whole production line. The Team has conducted a walk-through assessment on the tea production line at place. After the assessment and identification of waste streams, the Team has conducted mass and energy balances for the whole production line. All collected data have been used to analyse and identify Cleaner Production options for each production step.
After conducting CPA and identifying improvement options, the Company has carried out 20 no-cost and low-cost options with a total budget of VND 155 millions. Such application has brought about VND 490 millions each year. In the second phase (from June 2009 to November 2010), the Company has actively implemented high-investment options to improve the product quality and solve completely the environmental issues at place, specifically investing VND 7.6 billions for installation of a new crumpling machine suitable with the company of high quality tea; Installation of a new dust filter system to recover tea; Utilizing stem to make new product; Replacing coal drying furnace in step of withering tea. Benefits from those solutions are 1.9 billion dong by reducing raw material consumption and increasing productivity, reducing labor
Particular benefits derived from Cleaner Production are as follows:
| Technical benefit | Economic benefit | Environmental benefit |
| Phase 1 | ||
| Annual reduction of 3.1% of raw material consumption | Annual saving of 491 million VND | Annual reduction of 273 ton CO2 |
| Phase 2 | ||
| Annual reduction of 8.1% of raw material consumption | Annual saving of 1.03 billion VND | Improved working environment and the surrounding environment |
Typical Cleaner Production options of the Company are as follows:
| No. | CP Option | Investment | Performance | CP technique |
| 1 | Workers trained to operate furnace | 70 million VND | Saved up 25 kg coal/ton of product (65 million VND/year) | GH |
| 2 | Better insulation of pipe | GH | ||
| 3 | Buy coal with same size | GH | ||
| 4 | Reduce impurities in coal | GH | ||
| 5 | Raise worker’s awareness in manipulation, avoiding tea spilling and sticking to equipments, utensils | 20 million VND | Reduce raw material loss, improve product quality, electricity saving | GH |
| 6 | Improve packaging system to reduce tea spilled out. | EC | ||
| 7 | To limit using hands touching tea and avoid spreading tea out in the platform | GH | ||
| 8 | installation of a new crumpling machine suitable with the company of high quality tea | 3.1 billion VND | Saving of 1.6 billion VND/year | EC |
| 9 | Installation of a new dust filter system to recover tea | 638 million VND | Financial benefit:186 million VND/year | OR |
| 10 | Utilizing stem to make new product | 3.4 billion VND | Financial benefit:815 million VND/year, completely solve environmental issues | OR |
| 11 | Replacing coal drying furnace in step of withering tea | 420 million VND | Saved up 184 million VND/year | EC |
Remarks: GH: Good Housekeeping; EC: Equipment Change; PC: Process Control; OR: Onsite Recovery
Perceiving the benefits from CP application, the company insisted to maintain the CP team activities and integrate CP in the general management system at place. In order to facilitate CP application, a simple environmental management system has been developed. The Company has also set up environmental policy, whereby it is requested that the environmental protection law and other regulations should be followed strictly, ensuring the sustainable development of the company and reducing waste emission sources. The Company has integrated process management system with the environmental management system, therefore, energy and material consumption is monitored at the same time with the monitoring of pollutant parameters in the waste streams.
The environmental monitoring plan has been initiated. The aim of the plan is to monitor significant improvements from applying CP or to adjust if there is any reduction in environmental benefits.
CP not only brings about benefits from energy saving, emission minimization, reduced water consumption, but also helps the Company increase production, improve product quality, prove prestige. The implemented CP options at the Company are a typical case study for enterprises in the sector of tea production in Vietnam./.