My Hung Trade & Production Ltd Com is a private company established in 2006, specialized in producing all kinds of plastic bags providing for local market. At first, the Company was family-scale factory, internal producing and selling products as well as processing plastic products based on customer’s orders. Gradually, The Company developed to become My Hung Trade & Production Ltd Com.

With the Company, the main pollution sources from the production process are: temperature, noise, air emissions, wastewater and solid wastes. Averagely, to produce 1 ton product, the Company discharges 7.45 m3 wastewater from washing and cutting stages (in which BOD and COD parameters are of high value) and 80kg solid wastes (include dust, solid wastes, spilled plastics, burnt plastic and plastic scraps). Besides, the exhaust fumes, including coal fumes, dust from brazier used to dry materials, dust from plastic flux, can pollute the environment.

Perceiving the importance of applying CP to improve production performance and solve environmental issues, the Company has actively participated in the CP demonstration project of the Cleaner Production in Industry Component since 2007

The Company has set up a CP team to review and assess the whole production process, identify obstacles and analyse solutions to save energy and resources. The Team  has cooperated with CP expert to focus the assessment on the production line of second class plastic bags. This was the main production line of the company, which consumed the most materials and energy as well as caused the most poluted. If this line was improved, the company would saved a lot of money and reduced poluttion.

The team has proposed 21 CP solutions. Some of those were applied and brought the following benefits.

Technical benefit	Economic benefit	Environmental benefit
Reduce 64kWh electricity/ton of product	Annual saving of VND 12 millions	Annual reduction of 8640 kg CO2
Reduce 0,5 m3/ton of product		Annual reduction of 94 m3 wastewater

   
 Typical Cleaner Production options of the Company are as follows:
 

No.	CP Option	Investment	Performance	CP technique
1	Check carefully plastic waste importing	VND 30 millions	Reduction of electricity, water consumption and raw material loss	GH
2	Sort plastic waste before beating; separate very dirty parts before beating and beat them in separate place			PC
3	Cover beating machine.			EM
4	Adjust flow of pump according to demand			PC
5	Raise awareness of workers in water saving			GH
6	Use settling tank after washing process and recycle washing water for chopping process.			EM
7	Improve squeezing centrifuge to reduce water content in materials before drying			EM
8	Increase ventilation in drying workshop			GH
9	Provide skills training to workers			GH
10	Improve electricity controller of pressing machine to control temperature of burning barrel			EM

Remarks: GH: Good Housekeeping; PM: Process Modification; EM: Equipment Modification; MC: Materials Changing; PC: Process Control

Together with Cleaner Production option, the Company also invested VND 880 millions to make a break-through in production and business. The Company has installed a gas sucking and treating system, using activated carbon, for plastic pressing machine and at the same time; replaced all re-winded motors by the new ones; installed frequency controller in necessary places. Only the solution of improving the squeezing centrifuge has annually reduced 420 m3 of recovered wastewater, 336kWh of electricity, reduced heavy labour, etc.

With the effort of applying CP, My Hung Production and Trade JSC,. Has completely implemented CP steps, trained skills for workers. Thus, the company staff have had higher awareness in saving production costs and protecting the environment. Product quality and productivity are improved, the Company has more opportunities to improve and invest in new equipment, technology. Especially, the working environment has been enhanced significantly, labor health is ensured better than the status prior to CP application./.