Environmental Issues

Environmental issues are extremely important to us. We are committed to conducting business in a manner that protects the health and safety of our employees while protecting the environment. Therefore S.D.E., which is regulated by the Durban Metro Wastewater Management and Department of Water Affairs, is continually looking for more safer environmentally acceptable processes and chemicals that will help lessen the impact on the environment in their use and subsequent disposal.

The usage of trivalent chromate instead of the traditional hexavalent chromate’s also eliminates the environmental concerns associated with the toxic hexavalent chromate’s, while meeting the automotive and European directives to eliminate hexavalent chrome.

We encourage the proper management of renewable and non – renewable resources to ensure a safer, cleaner environment through the waste minimisation processes that foster the principles of reduce, reuse and recycle. Many areas of the company’s operations have been improved to reduce energy consumption, water and chemical usage, and ultimately, waste disposal.

Some of the improvements implemented by S.D.E. include :

The increase in water rinse tanks using a “counter flow” current system,  reducing water and chemical usage.
Re – use of spent chemicals. Instead of disposing of them, they are used in the manufacture of other chemicals required in the plating process or they are used for dosing in the effluent treatment plant.
The use of a filter press at the end of the effluent treatment process, reducing solid waste disposal by 70 %.
The replacement of the old cyanide zinc process with new enviro friendly alkaline zinc finishes.