Chemical Substances Control and Reduction

The Yokogawa Group strives to carefully manage chemical substances that are hazardous to the environment and human health and to reduce them through development and implementation of alternative processes and other measures.

Yokogawa Manufacturing Kofu factory actively sets up goals to implement the Yokogawa Group Environmental Policy on minimizing the environmental pollution for each year. Reduction of Toluene and Xylene was also defined in quantity one of the goals. In 2008, the detergents that do not contain Toluene were used for cleaning paint cans and equipment. With this change, the usage of Toluene and Xylene in Yokogawa Manufacturing Kofu factory was reduced to 2,350kg in fiscal year of 2008, 920kg less than the previous year's 3,270kg.

In Yokogawa Manufacturing Komine factory, the amount of waste fluid generated during the cleansing and degreasing processes sent to the waste water treatment company was reduced. Before painting a product, the product needs to be cleansed to remove the grease that adhered to it during the cutting process. On the cleansing line, there are three cleansing processes performed in the washing tank, the rinsing tank, and the drying tank. Originally, the fluid after rinsing was recycled by the water-purifying equipment inside the factory. Since the water quality was getting worse and worse after a few cycles, the factory began to send the waste water to the waste water treatment company in recent years.

However, the quantity of the waste fluid sent to the water treatment company had been increasing greatly, and the reduction of the amount of waste water sent to the water treatment company was identified as a target environmental activity. Undergoing a thorough investigation, when mixing the waste water from the cleansing line with the waste water from the surface processing line in the factory's waste water treatment equipment, the processed waste water reached the standard for draining waste water through the sewerage system. It is estimated that this effort will reduce the waste water sent to the water treatment company by 40t per year.

In Yokogawa Electric China Co., Ltd. in Suzhou, in accordance with the Yokogawa Group’s Mid-Term Environmental Voluntary Action Plan, activities to abolish HCFC (hydrochlorofluorocarbon) were carried out. The cleansing liquid was replaced by the semi-water based glycol ether cleaning liquid that does not contain HCFC. This project was started in the group companies in China based on successful experience in Japan. After a number of experimentations performed together with the engineering department, the usage of HCFC was completely abolished in May, 2009.

• HCFC:
  Hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) is a chemical substance used for substituting the Fluorocarbon. The hydrochlorofluorocarbon contains hydrogen, chlorine, fluorine, and the carbon substances and plays a significant role in the depletion of the ozone layer and global warming. Developed countries have decided to abolish using this material by 2020.

Compliance with product related legislation on environmental aspects is a design requirement for Yokogawa products. The legislation on restriction of hazardous substances (Hexavalent Chromium, Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and certain flame retardants) and the control on release of substances to the environment (REACH) are leading.

A number of Yokogawa products are excluded from the European RoHS directive as they belong to Category-9 (monitoring and control instruments). However also in this category, Yokogawa strives to avoid or minimize the use of hazardous substances where possible.

Yokogawa has built production lines in Japan and China that are designed for use of RoHS-compliant components and lead-free solders.

Yokogawa applies good manufacturer practices and adheres to the use of international technical and process management standards to achieve compliance where possible. Independent notified bodies are continually inspecting our manufacturing processes and production sites and examine many of our products prior product release.

Yokogawa’s Regional Support Offices have validation processes in place to control placing on the market of products in compliance with regional and industry segment specific legislation.

The following table shows the Yokogawa Group’s usage of substances designated to be reported by the PRTR System* (which applies to usage of 1 ton or more per year).

• * PRTR System:
  The PRTR, or Pollutant Release and Transfer Register System, was established to enable society as a whole to manage chemical substances through the disclosure of toxic chemical emissions data and other information.