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Pilkington is committed to manage the project in accordance with the relevant
Russian and EU environmental and occupational health and safety standards.
During the planning and construction phases of the project its social and
environmental management has been largely supported by the Pilkington’s
corporate management system. Currently Pilkington’s Russia is establishing
in-house capacity to implement the project-specific Social and Environmental
Management Program;
This project was screened B/1 requiring an environmental audit and analysis.
The environmental investigations addressed the following potential
environmental, health and safety and social impacts.
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Site location and suitability;
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Sustainable raw material supply;
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Air emissions;
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Wastewater and solid waste management;
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Noise;
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Occupational health and safety;
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Employment opportunities.
Proposed mitigation for environmental and social issues
The sponsor has presented plans to address these impacts to ensure that the
proposed project will, upon implementation of the specific measures agreed,
comply with applicable national laws and regulations and EU and World Bank/IFC
requirements. The information about how these potential impacts will be
addressed by the sponsor/project is summarised in the paragraphs that follow.
The proposed site is located 35 kilometers south east of Moscow, in the
Ramenskii District and is owned by a private farm company. The private farm
company, formerly a collective, owns and uses approximately 4,500 ha of land
for its production based on cattle, milk and vegetables. The 37 ha site is
located between two villages (east and west), a major sand quarry (north), and
open fields with an underground high-pressure sewage line (south). The nearest
village is Zhukovo approximately 600 meters west-south-west of the property
line on the other side of two high voltage power transmission lines and a
railroad line leading to the sand quarry. At a further distance towards the
east is the village of Kakuzevo. The nearest residence is 300 meters from the
site boundary and a land usage plan will ensure that no residences can be
build within 100 meters of the project site.
The site is located along the rail line and the project includes rail
facilities for raw materials import. Road access to the main road to Moscow is
currently via a local road passing thru the village of Zhukovo. To avoid heavy
traffic in the village the project will construct a new access road to the
north of the village. This road will follow existing field divisions to avoid
impact on the usage of the fields. The land take for the access road is
included in the 37 ha to be bought from the farm company.
General utilities, including natural gas, are readily available near the site;
while the project will have the limited need for water supplied from own wells.
The main raw materials for the float glass production are sand, soda ash, and
dolomite/limestone. All these raw material are available as a commodity at the
market and Pilkington will ensure supply contracts with at least two suppliers
for each essential raw material. The principle of at least two suppliers is to
ensure price competitiveness and the possibility of eliminating any supplier
breaking basic principles for environmentally sustainable supply. Despite the
principle of at least two suppliers for all raw material it must be expected
that the local sand quarry, which is the leading local supplier for glass
production and has a capacity of up to 1,000,000 tpa, will have a transport
cost advantage over other suppliers and will supply a significant part of the
180,000 tpa needed by the project. Pilkington will carry out an internal
review of all major suppliers ahead of contracting.
Melting inorganic raw materials in a furnace at high temperature is the basis
for glass production. The high temperature needed will result in formation of
sulphur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and dust emissions. Sulphur oxide
concentrations in the air emissions will be directly proportional with the
sulphur in the fuel used, while nitrogen oxides are formed by oxidation of the
natural free nitrogen in the atmosphere. A normal trimmed (optimized) glass
smelter furnace will have NOx emissions of up to 2,500 mg/Ncm if no NOx
reduction measures are taken. Dust emissions are caused by both the fuel used
and evaporation and later condensation of sodium sulphate from the melt.
The proposed plant will utilize natural gas, which is low in sulphur and the
air emissions will therefore have low sulphur oxide emissions. To limit the
NOx emissions Pilkington will install its 3R-low NOx technology on the plant.
This will allow the plant to reduce the NOx emissions to around 1200 mg
NOx/Ncm. Pilkington has further committed to follow European Union Directive
IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) as applied to float glass
manufacturing once it becomes available.
Natural gas is a clean fuel and does not result in dust formation by it self.
Therefore the dust emissions will be limited to evaporation of sodium sulphate
(a water soluble non toxic substance) from the molten glass bath. The
evaporated sodium sulphate will condense as the temperature of the combustion
gas decreases in the heat recovery system. Pilkington has managed to optimize
the furnaces from originally emitting around 250 mg dust/Ncm to around 100 mg
dust/Ncm at the moment, and is currently developing and testing further
furnace modifications to lower the dust emissions. Pilkington is committed to
optimise the furnaces operation to bring the dust emission below 50 mg/Ncm
before the end of 2007. The compliance with the 50 mg/Ncm limit will be
achieved either by the new furnace modifications or by installing traditional
flue gas scrubbing systems.
Water consumption and wastewater from the new facility will be limited. Both
cooling water and wash water from the process will be circulated in closed
loops, with only a small bleed being discharged to the on-site wastewater
treatment plant. Hereby the on-site biological wastewater treatment plant will
mainly receive its load from domestic sources (toilet, bath, canteen
facilities, etc.). The treatment system will be based on a system successfully
implemented at another Pilkington float glass plant and will fully comply with
local requirements, EU standards and World Bank guidelines.
A float glass plant needs significant blowers for the furnaces. These blowers
will, due to the construction of the heat recovery systems, be located in deep
enclosures and will have practically no noise impact on the site. Therefore
the main sources of noise will be rail movements and truck movements. No
residences are located near the site, and the new access road will ensure that
the trucks do not pass through the local villages.
While cut related accidents in the downstream handling of the flat glass has
been typical for this industry sector in the past, Pilkington PLC, the sponsor
company, has corporate wide focused on occupational health and safety
upgrades. As a result the Pilkington corporate accident rates have fallen from
34 LTA/MMH (Lost Time Accidents/Million Man-Hours) in 96/97 to 5.85 LTA/MMH in
01/02. While the reduction is impressive, Pilkington PLC is aware that further
improvement is desirable and is constantly looking for opportunities to
reduction. Within the Pilkington worldwide operations the float glass plant in
Sandomierz, Poland, has the best safety record with no LTA for the last 1790
days (nearly five years) at the time of appraisal. The Sandomierz operation is
of approximately the same size as the proposed project and to ensure the
highest safety standard from the very beginning, the General Manager of
Pilkington's operations in Sandomierz is expected to take the position of
General Manager of the new facility.
During construction the number of construction worker will reach almost 500.
In the operational phase the float glass plant will need around 200, of which
180 will be hired locally and trained to operate the plant safely and
optimally.
Monitoring and compliance
EBRD will evaluate the project's compliance with the applicable environmental
and social requirements during the lifetime of the project by reviewing the
annual monitoring reports (AMRs) prepared for the project covering ongoing
performance of project-specific environmental, health and safety activities.
Periodic site supervision visits will also be conducted.
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