The Middle East and Africa’s leading vertically-integrated paper manufacturer, the Middle East Paper Co. (‘MEPCO’), highlights its commitment to economic and environmental sustainability through three major operational cost-efficient benchmarks. The environmental sustainability underpinning MEPCO’s operational model demonstrates a significant cost reduction of around 35% through the generation of its own power, when compared with sourcing from the national grid.
This is further bolstered by MEPCO achieving between 10-15% cost reduction through waste water recycling. Moreover, WASCO (Waste Collection and Recycling Company), its wholly-owned subsidiary, supplies approximately 90% of MEPCO’s raw materials through waste paper collection. Eng. Sami Safran, CEO MEPCO commented: “Environmental sustainability is more than an initiative at MEPCO – it is ingrained in our operational framework. We operate in an energy-intensive industry that consumes high levels of electricity and water. MEPCO’s conservative resource management practices play a significant role in controlling costs, enhancing its production efficiency and contributing towards sustainability. Our water recycling, power generation and domestically-sourced raw materials are all splendid examples of how an environmentally sustainable operational model can positively impact a company’s bottom line.”
MEPCO carefully manages its resources by using Captive Power Generation, a locally-sourced power facility, that will allow for significant cost reduction, maximise the utilisation of its own resources, and provide fully-integrated processes. Around 70% of waste water is collected during manufacturing, purified, then recycled. This process allows MEPCO to keep water consumption levels at about 5 cubic metres per ton, which is significantly lower than the industry standard of approximately 20 cubic metres per ton. Formalising its sustainability processes, MEPCO has created an ‘internal energy conservation team’, that will provide an ongoing effort towards effective power management. This team has already saved around 1.5 MW of power per hour in the process, stemming from capacity management of equipment, optimising process parameters, reducing idle times and providing alternate methods of lighting.
Eng. Safran continued: “Our resource-efficient measures see our overall production costs reduced significantly in comparison to our competitors. For any business, cost efficiency of operations is an ongoing consideration and for a manufacturing company located in a desert climate, operational and resource efficiency is of premium importance. With our production requiring steam generation, MEPCO installed high-pressure boilers and high-speed turbines, serving both power generation and production. This method ensures that the cost of power is approximately 35% lower when compared to the grid, helping MEPCO to be considerably more cost efficient.”
WASCO collects over 40% of KSA’s waste paper through 24 established hubs and a fleet of 350 vehicles. Founded in 2004, just a few years after MEPCO’s inception, WASCO has recently expanded from KSA to include neighbouring countries in its waste collection efforts. MEPCO has realised in excess of 700% sales growth in just 15 years and has expanded from presence in the GCC market to representation in over 40 countries across the Middle East and Africa region. WASCO collects almost half a million tons of waste annually.
