Helping your Metal Fabrication business improve its Eco-Efficiency

A Sector Eco-Efficiency Promotion Project was implemented for the metals industry in collaboration between the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia (CCIWA), Environment Australia and the Centre of Excellence in Cleaner Production.

CCIWA entered into an Eco-Efficiency Agreement with Environment Australia to help businesses access information and put into practice eco-efficiency and cleaner production measures.

Through the agreement with Environment Australia CCIWA contracted the Centre for Excellence in Cleaner Production to survey the metals sector to:

• Determine the existing level of awareness about eco-efficiency and
• Help increase the awareness and uptake of eco-efficiency measures in small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). 

The survey included telephone and written components and was carried out in the period October 2001 to January 2002

The survey found that awareness and application of cleaner production and eco-efficiency is low among the respondent SMEs in the metals processing sectors. Given that only more interested and aware businesses are likely to have responded, awareness and implementation may be lower still in the sector as a whole, so there is plenty of potential for increased uptake of eco-efficiency measures.

Likely causes of the current poor uptake are:

• A lack of basic awareness by businesses of the environmental impacts and risks of their operations
• A lack of understanding of the business benefits of cleaner production and eco-efficiency;
• Real or perceived barriers to implementation.  These real and perceived barriers tend to be common across SMEs, regardless of sector and include lack of time and resources and high costs for low benefit.

To assist businesses increase their awareness and understanding of the benefits of eco-efficiency and cleaner production the Centre of Excellence in Cleaner Production under contract to CCIWA and Environment Australia ran a series of workshops for businesses in the metals sector.  The information sheets below summarise some of the information presented in the workshops.

Energy efficiency in the metals sector
Management of coolants in the metals sector
Waste minimisation for the metal fabrication and machining
Waste minimisation in the metal surface finishing

Businesses that attended the workshops were encouraged and assisted to develop Action Plans for the introduction of Cleaner Production measures in their workplaces. 

Metals Sectors Case Studies Available on the Environment Australia Website:

Reduced Energy Consumption - Bordex Wine Racks Australia
Electrophoretic Plating - Gainsborough Hardware Industries
Reduction in Water, Energy, Raw Materials and Waste - Queensland Electroplating
Reduction of Waste Fluids by Electrolytical Preflux Treatment - Industrial Galvanisers Corporation
Reduction in Waste; Decrease in Rework - Korvest Galvanisers
Metal Recovery in Electroplating - Email Ltd, Kitchen and Bathroom Products Division
Phosphate Pre-Treatment of Steel - Always Powder Coating
Wastewater Reuse in Zinc Plating - Protectakote Pty Ltd
Replacement of Salt Baths with Fluidised Bed Furnaces - Quality Heat Treatment
Replacement of Methylene Chloride Based Paint Stripping Process with Pyrolysis Process - Intrepid Industries