Page 17 - 2020 Sustainability report DOW Thailand Group

Operational excellence

Change raw water sludge to a soil modifier
Most of the raw water treatment processes generate sludge that needs to be transported for further
disposal by incineration, consuming high energy. Therefore, Dow Thailand Group began to use raw water sludge,
which has no harmful residues, as a soil modifier. It has been licensed, tested, and certified by government and
agricultural agencies to be safe and arable. Throughout 2020, the manufacturing plant has converted more
than 25 tons of raw water sludge to benefit the community and the environment by delivering it to the Rayong
Provincial Administrative Organization for use as a soil conditioner for public gardening. It greatly reduces
incineration, saves energy wasted in the combustion process, and reduces the cost of transportation. It also
reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than 94% or about 340 metric tons/ year than conventional
incineration.

Dow Ecowaste: Saving time, eliminating slow reports
Normally, all manufacturing plants are required to have a proper protocol for submitting reports, for
example, reporting on hazardous waste transportation, which needs to be collected and reported to the
Department of Industrial Works. In the past, the data collection and preparation of reports had to be conducted
on-site. The COVID-19 situation sent many of Dow's employees to work from home, affecting the preparation
of these reports.
Dow's Responsible Care Department has created a website, "Dow-ecowaste.com." It was fully
implemented in March 2019. Additional functions were developed in 2020 to enable more efficient data
collection, reporting, and auditing. Examples of useful functions are the status report of documents for waste
delivery three months in advance, an email warning system to update the waste information sheet, and
notification via the website and email when submitting documents number 2 and number 3 later than 7 days.
It also has various functions to help make reporting more convenient and faster.

The success of the Dow Ecowaste project
● Preparation of accurate reports on the delivery of hazardous and non-hazardous waste transportation and
on-time submission.
● Forms can be conveniently downloaded from the system, for example, vehicle inspection certificates,
Kor Aor 1 document certificates, and various report formats.
● Data reporting is more efficient and accurate, with reduced paperwork time for liability guarantee documents
(Kor Aor. 1) for waste transportation.
● It can be used by all departments and helps users to work more efficiently.
● It can reduce working hours and expenses up to 1,798,000 baht/ year (58,000 dollars/ year).

Building on 2020's success, Dow's Responsible Care Department has created a waste inventory webpage
to control waste collection within 90 days; the webpage has already been implemented at the polyethylene plant.

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