Driven by the aim to attain water sustainability and reduce its consumption and pollution, the chemicals production unit of UFlex in Noida is now a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) facility.
ZLD is a strategic waste water management system that ensures there is no discharge of industrial wastewater into the environment.
By adopting ZLD technology, UFlex has started saving close to 20 kilolitres of water per day. UFlex’ Chemicals business develops eco-friendly, sustainable and food-safe compliant inks, adhesives, coatings and biodegradable packaging solutions such as primers, barrier, gloss and heat-seal coatings which are ecologically conscious with a lower carbon footprint.
While UFlex has been making a conscious effort to bring down the use of water while developing these solutions, with the implementation of ZLD, the plant has ensured liquid waste is eliminated. The plant uses a 100% supply of effluent-treated water through a combination of membrane bio-reactor, reverse osmosis and agrigated thin film dryer technologies.
The final product is thus reused in boiler feed, cooling tower makeup water, and fume hoods; without being discharged into the municipal sewer. The rejected water is converted to solid waste residue via evaporation and discarded as hazardous waste (as per the regulatory norms).
Rajesh Bhasin, Joint President, Chemicals Business at UFlex said, “We have adopted this technology to contribute positively to the environment by considerably reusing and recycling waste water in order to save groundwater consumption and is a big move for us in reducing our overall water consumption and ensuring that wastewater does not get discarded into the environment. We look forward to implementing the ZLD technology in our other production facilities.”