The carbon cost of treating this waste to a large extent sits with the transportation of a large volume of waste to a suitable treatment or disposal site.  Until such time as we have fully electric heavy trucks this is very much a “diesel truck moving heavy waste around the country” type affair. This causes air pollution (fine particulates), puts pressure on road infrastructure and creates GHG emissions.

Oil sludge in waste pits or from oil storage facilities contains a mixture of oil, solids and water. There are often heavy hydrocarbons present that are virtually solids at ambient temperatures. This mixture is often stable, hard to separate into its different components and not easy to treat.In the context of the overall environmental footprint of the treatment of this waste we now have to take into account the carbon footprint of the treatment processes used. At SASES we have worked for over 20 years in this field and from the very first day our focus was on waste reduction at source.

In the video we put together we can see a breakdown of the processes and their Carbon footprint and we also have a more detailed fact sheet outlining some more numbers and assumptions for those of you who wish to dig deeper. In short by processing the oil sludge at the site of origin (refinery, waste pit) we can remove the liquids from the solids and separate the waste into different phases.

Our MIST process using SludgeTreat chemistry will recover oil for return to the refinery, water for discharge and only the recovered, dry solids will require transport to a landfill site or other disposal site. Often the disposal site for this hazardous waste is not nearby. 600km – 800km of travel distance is not uncommon and at times waste requires transport using sea freight to another country.

We are working with our supply chain to improve the carbon footprint of the chemistry all the time and are setting up regional manufacturing sites so we can reduce the shipping footprint of our products.

Huge savings can be made in taking into the carbon footprint of what we do. We can reduce the carbon cost AND reduce the direct economic cost of oil waste treatment. So, save money and save the environment while treating oil waste. Not bad at all we think.

For our example we used transport to a disposal site 600km from the refinery. By removing the bulk of the waste at the refinery we reduce the overall carbon footprint of the treatment process by some 70%. Yes, there is of course a carbon cost in manufacturing our surfactant-based chemistry and creating and shipping our engineering system (which has at least a 10-year lifespan). We have factored in these elements and the assumptions can be found in the detailed facts sheet.

We will be talking about how you can assess your processes and what you can do to lower your carbon footprint in the coming weeks.

Your customers are looking to see who is going to help them reduce their carbon footprint. Everybody is going to be looking at who is doing something to improve things.

 So, let’s do something.

Download our Factsheet to discover our Assumptions and how we’ve calculated our Carbon Footprint.