The market for green products is growing

Nutver Goolab, CEO of Fine Organic Chemicals, a small company that manufactures environmentally friendly industrial cleaning products, said their clients had become a lot more conscious of the effect of chemicals on the environment.

About 10 years ago when Goolab and two partners took over the company in a management buyout, a third of their chemicals sales were from environmentally friendly products. Today these account for 60% of their products.

Most of their range is developed in the US and manufactured under agreement at their factory. Goolab supplies motor and parts manufacturers and steel-maker ArcelorMittal, among others.

He said though green cleaning products are on average priced 20% to 30% more, many of his clients insist on buying them.

“The industry has matured to the point that they [large companies] do understand the cost of using environmentally beneficial products.”

There has also been an increase in opportunities in waste removal and recycling, and a growing sector is reconditioning industrial drums used to carry hazardous and non hazardous products.

Anand Sivansulam, health and safety officer at the Phumelela Group, a company that owns five drum-reconditioning operations around the country, said the sector for reconditioning had more than doubled in the past five years. Much of the drums come from the petroleum and chemicals sectors.

Sivansulam said 15 years ago drums would simply be scrapped, often unwittingly exposing employees to hazardous chemicals, and some smaller companies still fail to dispose of chemical resin left in the drums properly.

Liz Anderson, of the Responsible Container Management Association of Southern Africa, said her association, a Section 21 company, aimed to put into place best practices and to improve drum reconditioners' legal compliance. It is also involved in getting large industrial companies to use smaller companies to recondition their drums.

The association represents about 30 small companies, most of them in Gauteng, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. With the new Waste Management Bill to be enacted soon, businesses will have to ensure they comply with certain standards, but Anderson said virtually no-one was operating within the law.

She said many of the drums are not cleaned properly after carrying chemical products and are used as water containers by poorer residents.

Source: Business Day

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