Sugar Corporation of Uganda Ltd (SCOUL) is a sugar processing company under the Mehta Group. The raw materials for the company include sugar which is obtained from out growers and from the factory farm. The company is in Kyoga Water Management zone in Lugazi and faced a lot of challenges with water management.
Switch Africa Green programme through the project; Demand-Side Management of Water Use in Micro, Small, Medium-Sized Enterprises in Uganda Through Promotion of Water Use Efficiency Techniques and Practices.
After the project implementation there was elimination of overflow of the main water conservation tank for the processor. This was achieved by installing a line to transfer the water for storage and another to transfer water to the injection water channel. This has in turn for eliminated use of abstracted water and channeling of water for chemical boiling in evaporators during cleaning and chemical preparation.
The grantee for this project was the Directorate of Water Resources Management (DWRM) in the Ministry of Water and Environment in partnership with the Uganda Cleaner Production Centre.
“The relationship with SWITCH Africa Green Programme started in 2017,” says James Kunya of Sugar Corporation of Uganda Ltd. “They shared with us how best to we can implement the programme initiatives into our business, that we may environmentally implement, we may improve the community, and then also economically, how best we can reduce the costs in our waste of materials and water.”
The company was able to recover water from vacuum pumps and Sulphur burner compressor for reuse as opposed to just sending it to drain. Installation of a water level control on the filter hot wash water tank to eliminate overflow has been done among many other water efficiency interventions. The company has installed steam injectors to recover the molasses back to the tank instead of washing it away. As a safety measure, there has been Installation of a siren at the mud tank to alert operators to close the feeding of mud into the tank thus preventing overflow, with level sensors been inserted on the clear juice tanks to eliminate spillages and overflows of clear juice.
This investment of USD 5,405 has resulted in the company saving some USD 2,010 annually. There has also been a reduction of water abstraction by 3,718M3 every year. Effluent discharge to the surrounding water bodies has reduced by a monthly average of 11.35M3. As a result, communities living downstream have benefited through this increased water flow enhancing their livelihoods.
“Before SWITCH Africa Green, there was a lot of waste, adds James. “We had to initiate these technologies and we had to employ them into our production processes, and we have recorded a number of changes in water consumption. They helped us to open our eyes so that we may see where we were wasting water and resources and how best we can introduce technologies in reducing on this waste and if possible, reuse what we thought was waste.”
