Recycling and reusing industrial waste in focus at Jubail conference

The Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY) will organize an international conference on modern technologies in recycling and reusing industrial waste in Jubail Industrial City from Dec. 3-4.
Ahmed bin Mutair Al-Balawi, general manager of technical affairs in the RCJY and the general supervisor of the conference, told Arab News that the conference is an extension to the efforts made by the RCJY in preserving the environment and putting strict procedures for the management and control of hazardous and non-hazardous industrial waste produced by industrial establishments operating in the city.
The RCJY aims to promote its support of recycling and using industrial waste. It also aims to reduce risks and find safe ways to dispose them, and the procedures involved in determining the type of waste, the methods of its treatment and how to transport and dispose it.
The conference also aims to strengthen the RCJY’s approach to support recycling and using industrial waste. The conference will address several topics such as oil waste recycling up-to-date technology, recycling promoters, waste and energy, recycling mining industry waste, modern studies and experiments in the fields of recycling industrial waste and recycling plastic and other materials.
More than 20 specialists and academics from inside and outside the Kingdom will discuss topics related to recycling by presenting latest technologies used nowadays and recent local and international studies in six sessions. There will be an exhibition accompanying the conference that will have many specialized companies participating in it.
The first session will focus on modern technologies in recycling oil waste that is headed by Ahmed Al-Hazmi from Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC).
The agenda of this session includes three lectures: Retrieving oil from the sludge using a three-stage centrifuge by Jihad Shana from Saudi Aramco; Refining today to be cleaner tomorrow by Jameel Aldeen Sheikh from the United Lube Oil Company (UNILUBE) in Jubail; and using technology to recover hydrocarbons and sediment treatment by Rae’ed Al-Atrash from Al-Atrash Company for Industrial Materials in Alkhobar.
The second session entitled "Recycling Catalyst" is headed by Khalaf Al-Anzi from Sadara Company. The agenda of this session includes four lectures — Using molybdenum from catalysts, renewing catalysts by using water technologies presented by Saleh Abu Alteen from Al-Bilad Catalyst Company, Advanced processing for recycling and using catalysts by Ameen Dahia from GMC company, and recycling catalysts by Matthew Bell from the Dutch company BV.
The third session entitled "Energy and Waste" is headed by Omar Agha from Dammam University and includes three lectures — Producing energy from waste by Ahmed Ayoub from Abu Dhabu Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO), Using luminous gas to generate electricity using solid oxide fuel cell by Rchberg Giorgn from Austria, and evaluating possible waste energy in Saudi Arabia by Omar Ouda from Prince Muhammad bin Fahd University.
The second day of the conference will have three sessions. The first session is entitled "Recycling mineral industry waste" led by Mustafa Aqil from Maaden Company and it includes three presentations — Reviewing disposal methods of three main types of industrial waste in Jubail and Ras Al-Khair by Muhammad Esmaiel from Rashid Geotechnical and Materials Engineers, Effective management of waste in Hadeed (Saudi Iron and Steel Company), and Recycling gypsum waste by Henrik Land from Denmark.
The second session is entitled "Modern studies and experiments in the field of recycling and using industrial waste" headed by Hussain bin Mohammed Al-Beshri, former director of the Department of Environmental Protection Authority in the Royal Commission in Jubail.
The session includes four presentations: Managing sodium hydroxide in Saudi Aramco by Hadi Al-Doghman from Saudi Aramco, Recycling and using waste in SABIC by Abdulrasheed Ja’afar from SABIC company, Catalyst and mercury: Example of a comprehensive treatment plant by Yves Thiller from Switzerland, and Reducing and recycling industrial waste by Tahir Hussain from Canada.
Al-Balawi explained that a group of specialists and academics from both inside and outside the Kingdom will present lectures revolving around the previous themes to benefit and exchange experiences that will be reflected positively on the environment.
He said there will be an exhibition organized with the conference in which many companies that are specialized in recycling and using industrial waste will take part.
The Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu carries out many periodic inspection tours in industrial plants and monitors the waste to find ways to recycle it. It makes sure that all these factories and companies follow the right procedures in disposing waste.
The Royal Commission monitors the waste produced by the factories and companies operating in the city and the correct and safe ways of disposing it. The Royal Commission tracks the process from the moment the waste is produced till its disposal.
Al-Balawi said that the RCJY encourages recycling and avoiding disposing. Recycling raises the value-added to the city’s production and helps to reduce the process of consumption and waste available resources.
The petrochemical industries produce 200,000 tons of industrial waste annually. It includes a mixture of solid and liquid waste that is recycled, some that is disposed of, some more of which 22 percent is burned, and the rest is hazardous waste.
Also, 800,000 tons of waste is annually produced by iron and mining industries that is recycled completely.
The city is now 40 years old since its foundation and along the incredible industrial growth there is waste production accumulating. The RCJY deals with waste in three ways such as disposing some waste by burying in dedicated and safe places, burning some waste by specialized companies, or through encouraging the companies to recycle their own waste.
After studying the environmental problems that may result from industrial waste, the RC started from its foundation to help investors set up the first waste treatment plant in the Kingdom that has all modern technologies according to international and local standards.The RCJY monitors industrial waste and handles it strictly and accurately through watching waste quantity in the industries and the time they are produced. Also, the RCJY monitors the transportation of the waste by certified carriers to transport it to the treatment plant.
“The commission is keen on following up with factories and companies to make sure they follow the proper procedures in waste management and taking environmental standards into account,” he said.
“We have a waste control program in the city that requires companies to commit and report waste periodically and quarterly reports are received from designated companies. The reports study the waste and the mechanism to deal with it,” he added.
Also, there are reports from the transportation company because the RCJY’s control program covers all stages of waste production to its final disposal stages in accordance with international and local standards.
Industry waste is considered a stock and every stock should be watched. It is prohibited that any material goes out of the building other than for recycling process.
Al-Balawi said that there is a pilot program to monitor waste electronically. The company enters the quantity that it wants to dispose of electronically and the carrier company and the treatment plant send out their requests electronically. “In that way, we will have a system that monitors, evaluates and gives us indicators on a daily basis or weekly that will make the monitoring process very accurate. The new system will be launched soon.”