Environmental management systems at ignition coil production plant

Environmental pollution continuous to increase with increasing industrialization. With new legislations, environmental management systems guide corporations to decrease pollution. Environmental management systems are the most important tool to reduce natural resource consumption and to prevent pollution in an effective and integrated way. In this study, ISO 14001 Environmental Management System standard requirements and implementation steps are described in details. Ignition coil production plant in the automotive parts industry is selected as study topic. With this scope, procedures and work instructions were established. In this framework, environmental policy was prepared, environmental aspects and impacts procedure was prepared, legal requirements, which the plant must obey, were specified, emergency situation procedure was prepared, internal audit procedure was formed. Ignition coil production processes were determined and examined. In order to apply the system, environmental aspects and impacts were defined as first in the study. Following to the evaluation, action plans were defined to realize the objectives and targets. Principally, four objectives were defined and actions were delineated. These objectives were (i) management of solid wastes (ii) management of wastewater (iii) management of waste area and chemical warehouse and finally (iv) training of employees. To realize first objective, types of waste and quantity were analyzed; as a result, plastic (fifteen percent) and domestic waste (thirty one percent) are detected as largest two waste groups. Waste separation at source was started and internal waste transfer was organized. With the start of waste separation at source, waste which could be recycled were recycled by recycling company. By this way, recycling ratio was increased from forty eight percent to sixty five percent and their environmental impacts were decreased. Waste water management was realized. To manage waste area and chemical warehouse, new waste areas have been planned, basic requirements of these waste sites defined and constructed. Finally, to increase employee's environmental consciousness, training was started.