Vinh Phu Battery Joint Stock Company has its headquarters in Chu Hoa commune, Lam Thao, Vietnam Tri City, Phu Tho Province. The company was officially commenced in 1978 with the production capacity of 70,000 kWh batteries for automobile per year with the total employees of 160 persons. The company specializes in production of automotive and motor batteries.
In 2008, the company received the support from the Ministry of Industry and Trade via the Cleaner Production in Industry Component (CPI) and Vietnam Cleaner Production Centre to conduct Cleaner Production assessment.
During the first phase (from May to December 2011), the company established a CP team led by Mr. Trieu Dinh Thach –Technical Deputy Director of the company and other 8 members to assess the whole production line. After the Cleaner production assessment (CPA) and identification of waste line, the Team has conducted mass and energy balances for the whole production line. All collected data have been used to analyze and identify Cleaner Production options for each production step.
After conducting CPA and identifying improvement options, the Company has carried out some no-cost and low-cost good housekeeping options with a total budget of VND 197 millions. Such application has annually brought 236 million dong. In addition, the Company has actively implemented high-investment options to improve the product quality and solve completely the environmental issues at place. The company had invested 8.8 billion dong for 7 big options as in the plate pasting process, the rejected plates should be separated, avoiding the exposure to water that could reduce the plate recycling and recovering possibility as well as chemically contaminating the wastewater effluent, replace ball-casting machine system, replace the mixer and pasting machine. Benefits from those solutions are 1.44 billion dong per year after deducting new system operation costs.
Particular benefits derived from Cleaner Production are as follows:
| Technical benefit | Economic benefit | Environmental benefit |
| Phase 1: | Annual reduction of 260 tons of CO2 Annual reduction of 14,000 kg of lead dross generates in production process. Dust concentration of exhaust fumes meet Environment National standard Mitigation environmental impacts in production area and surrounding the company | |
| Annual reduction of 47,000 kwh of electricity consumption | Annual saving of 47 million VND | |
| Reduction of 1.74 tons/year of lead consumption | Annual saving of 52 million VND | |
| Reduction of 530 litters/year of acid consumption | Annual saving of 5.3 million VND | |
| Reduction of 14,900m3/year of water consumption | Annual saving of 52 million VND | |
| Switch from coal to burn biomass | Bring benefit 1.83 billion dong per | |
| Phase 2: | ||
| Annual reduction of 364,000 kwh of electricity consumption | Annual saving of 364 million VND | |
| Annual reduction of 2.100 kg of gas consumption | Annual saving of 410 million VND | |
| Annual reduction of 12,800 tons of lead consumption | Annual saving of 358 million VND | |
| Annual reduction of 10,225 kg of rejected produced | Annual saving of 305 million VND | |
Typical Cleaner Production options of the Company are as follows:
| No. | CP Option | Investment | Performance | CP technique |
| 1 | Increasing bags for collecting lead dust in the melting process, thus, recovering partly lead materials and reducing lead emissions to the atmosphere | 15,5 million dong | Annual saving of 30 billion dong Reduction of 1200 kg of dust generation | PC |
| 3 | Separating wastewater effluent from each battery manufacturing process | 7,5 million dong | Improve wastewater quality | PC |
| 4 | Treating rejected plates in pasting process. The rejected plates should be separated and make the tanks to eliminate lead power from grids and then lead powder back to use for pasting and eliminated grids is used for grid casting | 5 million dong | Annual saving of 75 billion Annually reduction of 100m3 of waste water 1500 Kwh of electricity consumption | OR |
| 5 | Making tanks and trays to catch spillage acid solution during play and charge battery | 4,5 million dong | Annual saving of 5,3 million dong Reduction of 527 liters of acid solution spilled into environment | EM |
| 6 | Circulating and reusing cooling water in grid casting, lead powder, pasting process | 80 million dong | Annual saving of 37 million dong Reduction of 10,800 m3 of wastewater | OR |
| 7 | Substituting corrosive water valves by the new ones | 10 million dong | Annual saving of 6,4 million dong Reduction of 1825m3 of wastewater | EM |
| 8 | Sealing the leaks in the water supply network | 5 million dong | Annual saving of 5,1 million dong Reduction of 1460m3 of wastewater | GH |
| 9 | Studying to change to a new charging regime to avoid air emissions containing acidic mists and reduce fail products | 762 million dong | Annual saving of 166 million dong Significant reduction in emissions, energy, greenhouse gas | GH |
| 10 | Replacing the existing lead ball-casting machine, milling and pasting machine using more power and environmental pollution by the modern, closed and uninterrupted, low power consumption | 1,7 billion dong | Saving of 473 million dong/year Annually reduction of 51.625 Kwh of electricity consumption and reduction of 4200 kg of lead dross Annually reduction of 10.224 kg of fail semi-finished product | EM |
| 11 | Changing the existing grid-casting machine, which is highly energy consuming and creates large amount of dross and rejected grids by a new to reduce material and electricity consumption | 1,6 billion dong | Annual saving of 381 million dong Annual reduction of 140,350 kwh of electricity consumption Annually reduction of 8640 kg of lead dross | EM |
Remarks: GH: Good Housekeeping; EC: Equipment Change; PC: Process Control; OR: Onsite Recovery, EI: Equipment improvement
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. A sample system and legal procedures are built and applied for environment data collection, checking, classification and data analysis.
An 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. Environment monitoring system includes monitoring air quality and wastewater.
CP not only brings about benefits from energy saving, emission minimization, reduced water consumption, but also helps the Company increase production, improve product quality, and prove prestige. The implemented CP options at the Company are a typical case study for enterprises in the sector of battery production in Vietnam./.