ANTI-WASTE IS OUR VICE
In recent years there has been a lot of talk, fortunately!, of circular economy, environmental sustainability, ESG and the famous “Four Rs” that is: Reduction, Reuse, Recycling and Recovery.
But, in practice, what do companies really put in place?
You don’t just need big projects to lend a hand to the environment or at least, while studying the most disruptive ones, you can start with the little things that, if repeated over time, still bring benefits.
Today we tell you how in I.S.A.C. we feed our hammers.
Leading players in forging, the hammers have as their main part the club which, to beat, needs an intense flow of compressed air.
In fact, if part of the impact power is given by the weight of the club itself, another large part is given by a thrust produced by a compressed air cylinder-piston system, powered by the compressors.
I.S.A.C. needs about 2000HP (horsepower) of power to guarantee the over 260 mc/min it needs when working at full capacity, to understand a river has about 80 mc/min.
In 2018, our 8 compressors had a life of over 10 years and, despite being in full efficiency, they began to have the same ailments as a car with a high mileage.
Therefore higher consumption, slightly lowered efficiency, maintenance with more frequent stops and related higher costs.
It was therefore decided to replace those compressors with others of the same family, but in the new versions, which alone already gave 6% more efficiency at the same consumption.
In addition, being new, the efficiency was 100% and maintenance reduced to a minimum. We also purchased, for each compressor, a retrofit device for the cooling system, which consisted of an oil-water exchanger.
With this system, since 2018 we have been conveying the cooling water, when fully operational at 70° C, in a recirculation system that runs throughout the company. And with this thermal energy we heat offices, canteen, changing rooms, dies department, running water … and we even heat the air itself used for machinery, which tends to freeze in winter.
This allows us to reduce energy consumption, so we not only improve efficiency but also the environment is happy because about 90 tons of CO2 less are released into the atmosphere every year.
They are certainly small things but, as the hummingbird who tried to put out the fire by carrying one drop of water at a time said: “I do my part!”.
