Today, the Kolín-based car manufacturer TPCA was hosting a seminar focused on protection of the environment, called „Efficiently may be also ecologically“. TPCA has introduced several new projects related to the environment. With the projects, the plant increases the share of recycled waste, lowers the total weight of waste, consumes less energy and dramatically decreases CO2 emissions.

No waste from the plant will be dumped

No waste from the manufacturing plant will end at a dump; the monthly production of waste is 9 kg per one manufactured car. TPCA’s goal in the area of waste management is continuously increasing the share of recycling instead of incineration. As per today, 84 % of waste is recycled and TPCA continuously decreases the number of incinerated parts. Damaged plastic parts that were formerly incinerated are now separated from undesirable material (textile, rubber) and recycled as well. TPCA launches separated sorting of PET bottles in June; it has equipped employee rest zones with benches made of recycled plastic. „Employees in TPCA sort waste and we are regularly monitoring non-compliance. The results show that only less than 2 % of waste is sorted improperly,“ says the vice president in charge of manufacturing, Jiří Černý.

TPCA belongs to the most economical plants in consumption of energies

The total volume of consumed energies, i.e. electric power and natural gas, is 759 kWh/car. This number ranks TPCA among the most economical plants in Europe in this industry. Various projects resulted in energy savings, including, for example, installation of a heat-recuperating unit that uses waste heat to pre-heat fresh air flowing to the weld shop. The RTO unit at the paint shop functions in a similar way. When burning volatile organic compounds, there are high quantities of created heat that warms water for the paint shop’s processes. Transforming waste heat into the shop’s heating system decreased consumption of natural gas by 25 %.

Way to lower CO2 emissions

Energy savings are also closely related to lowering CO2 emissions. Recently, the plant has dramatically decreased consumption of natural gas and production of CO2 upon preparing hot water and heating the paint shop’s production process. This was due to interconnecting RTO technology and the heating system in the shop. Formerly, the output of RTO burning was used only to burn volatile compounds created upon paint drying and hot water was heated only in two boilers. By transferring waste heat to the heating system of the paint shop, we have decreased consumption and production of CO2 by 63 tons a month.

The cars manufactured in TPCA - Toyota Aygo, Peugeot 107 and Citroën C1 – have low CO2 emissions as well. With 109 g/km they have no problems with meeting the EU limits. According to the results of the German automotive club VCD, the cars ranked right after hybrid drive cars in production of carbon dioxide.

Award for lowering emissions of volatile organic compounds

In 2008, the car plant was awarded by Toyota Motor Corporation for significant lowering of the volume of emitted volatile organic compounds. Thinners are the biggest source of volatile organic compounds. TPCA maintains a long-term low consumption of thinners for flushing painting robots, as it uses a water-borne cleaner for this purpose. Statutory limits in the Czech Republic for emissions of volatile organic compounds are 45 g/m2; TPCA emits only 13 g/m2.

Matěj Matolín
Spokesperson of TPCA