The Western Cape Industrial Symbiosis Programme (WISP), delivered by GreenCape, develops mutually profitable links between companies from all industrial sectors, so that under-utilised resources such as energy and water, and/or materials from one company can be recovered, reprocessed and re-used by others.
An accidental fire over one of the holidays burnt down Pallet Cycle’s (a company that manufacture quality recycled pallets using selected second-hand timber) storage facility reducing half the stored pallets into ash and leaving the rest partially burnt into charred wood. The fire rendered the burnt pallets unusable, there was no chance to salvage/recover any of the pallets. Pallet Cycle now needed to dispose of the burnt wood and approached WISP to find out if there were alternative disposal routes besides landfilling. There was just over 54 tonnes of material that needed to be disposed.
WISP approached Apollo Brick with the proposal to take the burnt material from Pallet Cycle. Apollo Brick used reverse logistics to transport the material back to their facility. The ash was incorporated into the bricks as traditionally done in the industry and the partially burnt wood was used as fuel in the Kiln because of the energy content.
This resulted in the following economic and environmental benefits:
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R24 750 in transport & disposal costs saved by Pallet Cycle.
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Raw material cost savings for Apollo Brick
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55 tonnes of waste diverted from landfill
- 16 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions avoided
Read the full case study here.