Business case on RECP assessment in "Vazgen Abgaryan" LLC
"Vazgen Abgaryan" is a manufacturer of toilet paper based on waste paper and cardboards. Founded in 1998 as a micro-enterprise, five years ago, the company purchased modern pieces of equipment through a procurement process, which is currently operating at full capacity. The company’s main products consist of non-bleached toilet paper, kitchen paper towels, and paper napkins. The enterprise itself is lucrative and has no pending loans. In the near future, it plans to expand the supply of its products by introducing new varieties of paper goods. Motivated to improve the quality of its products and address the high annual energy costs, the company participated in the RECP Demonstration Project under EU4Environment (2019-2024). This publication shows the company’s experience reported after the monitoring exercise conducted in 2022-2023.
The RECP assessment examined the production site and identified several RECP options, out of which the following three were prioritized by the company. The recommendations include medium and low-cost measures:
RECP Option 1. Reducing losses of paper pulp and improving the quality of the wastewater effluents: This measure would reduce losses when converting the paper pulp into liquid waste (sludge) by introducing a smaller mesh on the filter used in the final stage of the wastewater filtration. The smaller mesh would keep the paper pulp away from the final product, simultaneously improving the quality of the wastewater effluents and increasing production efficiency.
RECP Option 2. Sorting out raw materials to reduce the quantity of caustic soda: This measure consists of sorting out the paper waste used as raw material, and discarding the residuals and highly dyed pieces in order to lower the quantity of caustic soda (which is an expensive and hazardous material) used for treating the raw material.
RECP Option 3. Insulating the inlet water preheating tank and outlet pipe: This measure consists of thermal insulation of the inlet water preheating tank to increase the energy efficiency of the boiler and generate steam for the drying unit. In addition, the measure would help reduce the consumption of natural gas.
