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 Madurai,
south Indian temple city, has a large electroplating
industry. The methods used in handling and disposing
the spent dyebath vary within the individual industries
due to their historic evolvement. Common to all of them
is the fact that electroplating effluents are amongst
the most hazardous and dangerous pollutants, leaving
behind toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury
and arsenic as well as highly toxic dioxin. In Madurai
these industries are located right in the central urban
area and every day produce 49000 litres of waste water
and 1200 litres sludge containing a high concentration
of above mentioned hazardous metals, not to mention
the emissions of sour fumes. All this again gives rise
to growing public complaints about the effluents and
about general traffic problems aggregated by the transport
of the product. The electroplating industry in Madurai
not only endangers the environment but also has a negative
effect on living conditions.
Consequently, about 100 electroplating units operating
in the residential areas of Madurai city received notice
for closure by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.
The association of electroplaters and metal finishers
of Tamil Nadu (EPMFAT) responded by deciding to relocate
the industries to a well laid out industrial estate
outside the core city area., 30 acres of land about
12 km from Madurai were acquired for this purpose.
However, mere relocation of the industrial units will
not guarantee its survival - pollution control norms
will have to be met and international competition is
stiff. Therefore, it has been decided to set up a state
of the art, modern technology, eco electroplating park
and to implement pollution free production processes.
This includes waste minimization options and clean technology
production as well as the implementation of a new sewerage
and drainage system, an effluent treatment and a metal
recovery system. These facilities will not only be state
of the art environmentally friendly model facilities
but will also increase the competitiveness of the Madurai's
electroplating industry. As a result, not only Madurai's
local electroplating industries will conform to environmental
law and will be more competitive on an international
basis. Furthermore, these activities will ensure that
in Madurai, there will be a remarkable improvement in
living conditions as well as health of thousands of
workers working in the electroplating industry will
be protected.
To replicate the positive effects, it is intended to
use this electroplating industrial estate as a model
for other electroplating industrial estates located
in Delhi, Amritsar, Ludhiana, etc.
ASEM and the Central Electro Chemical Research Institute
(CECRI) jointly provide technical assistance for setting
up the Industrial park project. It is intended to support
the infrastructure planning and design development as
well as to support the establishment of a state of the
art sewer system, drainage system, as well as an effluent
treatment and metal recovery system. In addition, support
is sought from the EU Asia Pro Eco programme to set
up this demonstrative eco-industrial electroplating
park.
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