Len Barr examines a brick of aluminium shavings from the compactor, which has slashed waste bills and recycled cooling fluid.

Aero-parts manufacturer, Hawker de Havilland has taken the cleaners to its production line, and reaped the rewards. By Richard Collins.

"Get out there and see what resources are being wasted, then fix it." That rather loose job description for Hawker de Havilland's first ever Waste and Resources Manager put the company on track to savings of more than $1 million a year.

Michael Jupe, an aviation industry veteran of more than 40 years, has spent the past three years identifying ways to decrease environmental impacts and increase resource efficiencies at the company's plant in western Sydney. He has also driven a project that is shaping up as one of the shining lights of a NSW Government-industry cleaner production partnership.

Over the last year the Department of Environment & Conservation (DEC) has been promoting sustainable industry practices with a wide cross-section of organisations, from the Advanced Manufacturing Centre to Burrangong Meat Processors, Fairfield Council to the Master Plumbers Association. DEC's David Trewin said the aim of the $5 million program was to mainstream cleaner production.

"It has enabled us to show that cleaner production is more than just rhetoric. It has given us the ammunition to prove it works and, crucially, with short paybacks," he said.

The Advanced Manufacturing Centre in Redfern coordinated a group of 12 metal manufacturers, including comp-anies such as Hawker de Havilland, Siemens and Rheem. Hawker de Havilland is an Australian icon, producing the famous de Havilland Mosquito bomber during World War II and today making aerostructure components for major aircraft manufacturers, with sales of over $100 million a year from the Sydney facility.

Jupe's "experimental" brief at the Bankstown facility was motivated initially by the prospect of cost reductions and cemented into place when its parent company, Boeing, made the commitment to environmental and social best practice. It was Jupe's job to find out where the company was wasting money, then come up with solutions and implement them, "at minimum cost, with a payback of two years, maximum," he said.

Savings of more than $250,000 a year were realistic, he thought, but reductions of $1.1 million were beyond all expectations, especially for an outlay of just $81,000. Needless to say, the payback periods were well within company limits.

Admittedly, some of the savings came from pretty low-hanging fruit. Recycling had not been part of the traditional culture. Cardboard boxes, for example, had been tossed into a 32 cubic metre skip which was collected every few days, holding as little as 400kg of loose cardboard. Jupe, who noted its capacity was closer to eight tonnes, rented a compactor for $3,000 a year and in one step saved $85,000 a year in storage, labour and waste service costs. Recycling initiatives were subsequently introduced for plastic, timber and steel, and in January a commingled service was introduced with colour-coded bins. Jupe estimates recycling will ultimately take care of 85 per cent of all Ôwaste'.

Energy was another area where simple ideas paid dividends. Security staff now turn off non-essential lights in the course of their rounds. They also noticed that gas heaters seemed to be left on when not required. After changing the run time and dropping the temperature setting by one degree, the maximum daily quantity (MDQ) was reduced, resulting in an estimated annual saving of $50,000.

Plugging the leaks
Hawker de Havilland's biggest materials issue by far is aluminium shavings, called swarf. During the machining process huge aluminium slabs are devoured but 80-90 per cent of it is left on the shop floor. Each month 41 tonnes of coolant-impregnated swarf are spat out. Jupe's prime target was to improve the management of the aluminium chips and spirals.

A new, $30,000 compactor was introduced to squeeze the swarf into high-density blocks and recover the cutting fluid straight into a filtering unit. Each year some 250,000 litres of the fluid, comprising oil and water, is expected to be recycled rather than disposed of, reducing annual coolant purchases by $132,000 and disposal costs by $70,000.

But the biggest payoff is in producing a 75 per cent denser brick, saving a hefty $530,000 per annum in storage and handling costs. There is also a down-stream bonus as the higher density blocks require less energy to re-smelt. The benefits have been impressive but Jupe believes there is still room for improvement in the compaction process, possibly by as much as 15 per cent.

Big savings were also found in water usage, where a comparison of inflow and outflow from the site proved instrumental.

"People had been collecting the information for years but no-one had actually compared it. It turns out our trade waste was going down but our water [use] was going up, despite a reduction in work on-site. So we joined Sydney Water's ÔEvery Drop Counts' program and introduced a datalogger, then turned off various sections to determine where any leaks were," Jupe said.

They found one under a road where both the mains and stormwater pipes had cracked, allowing losses of up to 100,000 litres a day. Plugging the leak will save $80,000 a year and Jupe now plans to fit sub-meters on all pipes to facilitate monitoring in discrete areas.

Spin-off savings
Thinking outside the square can be useful, Jupe says. Take packaging design, for example. Some delicate parts used to come from South Korea in trays made from silica-impregnated expanded plastic, which couldn't be recycled.

"We were trying to move away from non-recyclable materials as a matter of policy. It was costing us a fortune. I said to [the supplier] ÔHave you ever heard of McDonalds?' and proposed a cardboard tray based on a McDonalds-style drink holder."

Its introduction has reduced packaging waste by 240 cubic metres per year and produced spin-off savings, including packaging redesign ($35,000 a year), disposal ($2,000) and freight reduction ($93,000). The process is now being replicated for other parts, including the undercarriage door hinge mounting of an Airbus, which uses polystyrene as a packaging medium.

Sound results
The $5 million Profiting from Cleaner Production program has directly involved around 300 organisations and will reach out to others as industry associations, such as the plumbers, roll out their programs.

Matched funding grants for organisations from 14 industry sectors were approved by Environment Minister Bob Debus. These included the building industry, printing, intensive agriculture, boating and electroplating sectors. While not necessarily as spectacular as Hawker de Havilland, all have produced sound results. In the metals group, Siemens spent $1.3 million with payback in 16 months, Rheem $114,000 with a payback period of two years.

Trewin highlighted the benefits of a cluster approach, where people from non-competitive companies across an industry share ideas, problems and support. The Advanced Manufacturing Centre created a facilitated approach to cleaner production, bringing companies together to work in a group, conducting site tours and, where needed, using consultants to offer specific technical advice.

"From a DEC perspective the big outcome of the metals project is the environmental benefits, with hundreds and hundreds of tonnes of metal recycled, hundreds of tonnes of waste diverted from landfill and big savings in carbon dioxide, water and energy," Trewin said.