Reducing water consumption at LISI AUTOMOTIVE

Reducing water consumption at LISI AUTOMOTIVE is an important subject in our CSR approach to move towards a production that is more respectful of the environment.

Since 2018, the Grandvillars (Material Preparation) and La Ferté-Fresnel (Threaded Fasteners) plants have implemented processes that have led to a considerable reduction in their water consumption. Indeed, our Grandvillars site has replaced part of its surface treatment by chemical pickling (water intensive by its multiple rinsing operations) by a polymer shot blasting process, aimed at projecting beads of polymer material directly onto the steel's surface. The last step of this process uses a closed circuit of recycled water to rinse the steel leaving the shot blast machine. In the event that treatment by chemical pickling is necessary, a wastewater treatment plant has been installed near the plant to recycle the wastewater which will be reused for the rinsing operations. Since 2020, this recycled water has been used up to 50% depending on the plant's production time. All these processes have led to an overall reduction of 11,000 m3 in the water consumption of our Material Preparation plant, or the equivalent of more than 5 Olympic swimming pools!

As for the La Ferté-Fresnel plant, thanks to the installation of evapo-concentrators on its surface treatment lines, has seen its water consumption drop by 32% since 2018. Evapo-concentration consists in treating the wastewater from the surface treatment line, separating the residues and pollutants accumulated in order to recover the water that will be reused subsequently on the surface treatment line. Since 2018, this evapo-concentrator has reduced by 63,000 m3 or 33 Olympic swimming pools.

Thus, thanks to new methods of treatment and reuse of wastewater, LISI AUTOMOTIVE has been able to achieve a total saving of 74,000 m3 of water for the two plants in just two years.