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Sustainability
Sustainability in ARCH influences management decisions and practices, improving process efficiency, reducing waste volume or, from this, obtaining new materials for even more sustainable sanitary articles.
Sustainability starts with our commercialized products, which have lifespans exceeding 50 years.
The design of the parts influences their water performance and the consumption of materials and energy. The design of sanitary articles follows an efficient design logic.
How we work towards sustainability
THE SANITARY PROCESS
Sanitary production is the more demanding in the Ceramics area and one of those that can have the greatest environmental impact if poorly managed.
Thus, the environmental challenge is greater. Energy consumption and waste materials (plaster, slips, glazes) or even effluents (sludge, hot gases, WWTP effluents) are a threat and also an opportunity.
WASTE MANAGEMENT
The best way to achieve environmental sustainability is by ensuring efficiency of the use of resources and, here, the ARCH sets a good example with top production waste rates, taking advantage of its mastery of the ceramic process, which is not unrelated to the engineering of the equipment designed and created in its facilities.
Therefore, from the outset, it was a condition that the product to be developed would not produce waste that would obviously have to be disposed of from the facilities. In this context, the possibility was also raised that the waste obtained could be used in the manufacture of toilets. These premises are always part of the equation while the product is being developed.
RECYCLING CYCLE
With the rapid degradation of natural resources and the impacts of human activity on ecosystems, we face an imminent environmental disaster, with social inequalities and other threats.
A quick turning point in this paradigm is therefore urgently needed..
The ARCH SA informs that the most responsible way to dispose of old ceramic products is to deliver them to recycling centers with deposits Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW), promoting the circular economy and reducing the extraction of natural resources.
Packaging waste must be sent to appropriate recycling points, ensuring a sustainable cycle that balances economic growth, environmental care and social well-being.
WATER EFFICIENCY
Not only do resources have to be rationalized, but products must be efficient. A ARCH aims to design flush tanks with high water efficiency, through flush volumes that, despite being reduced, are able to guarantee the proper functioning of the basins, developed in accordance with the most demanding standards in different markets.
Still impacting the water performance, we work with our partners to passively reduce the flow rate of taps and showers, as the consumption of sanitary water is, in many countries, a serious problem for local sustainability due to scarce water resources.
The adoption of restrictive and intelligent control devices will allow you to reduce water consumption by 15% and hot water consumption by 20%.
LOW ENERGY CONSUMPTION POTTERY
A pottery is the place where sanitary ware parts are formed using specialized machines. The slip (ceramic paste) used in the manufacture of the parts contains a water content greater than 30% when it enters the mold, starting from there its elimination through drying of the molds and pieces inside the pottery.
The initial water removal is carried out using thermal energy, which ensures the water is vaporized into the environment and allows the parts and molds to dry, making them available for a new filling cycle.
This is therefore a process that requires large amounts of energy for this operation. In 2018 the ARCH designed a new pottery factory whose layout would allow the full use of flows thermal energy of the baking oven, thus guaranteeing 100% of its energy needs for drying molds and pre-drying sanitary parts.
CELL FILLING TECHNOLOGY
ARCH developed a manufacturing system for pottery pieces based on a new filling concept (of molds for ceramic pieces) in “filling cells”. This new technology was developed with the aim of make pottery production more flexible, allowing the construction of filling machines in which all the molds can be different without this affecting the quality and manufacturing times of different articles.
An "cell” is a structure with conditions for adapting to different molds and prepared to work with specific operating parameters of the part to be produced (filling time, pouring time, leveling, slip feeding, demolding position). The cell machine is the infrastructure where the cells are installed and which ensures the utilities (slip, pouring air, drying air, release agent) that each cell will need for the ceramic piece manufacturing operation.
The development of this technology has allowed the simplification and lightening of plaster molds, in addition to ensure a 30% increase in life cycle for the installed molds as ideal drying conditions are ensured.
IMPLEMENTATION OF LED LIGHTING AND SOLAR PANELS
Since 2016 the ARCH developed an extensive lighting replacement plan for its facilities, with the implementation of LED lighting in 60% of its equipment and buildings.
This investment involved replacing around 500 fluorescent and incandescent lamps with LED technology.
