OPOCZNO S.A.

OPOCZNO S.A. is situated in the city of Opoczno in the Łódź Voivodship. The plant has in total approximately 1500 employees. The authority for OPOCZNO S.A is the powiat office in Opoczno, Department for Environmental Protection, Agriculture and Forestry.

The OPOCZNO plant which actually consists of four units is producing differ-ent kinds of ceramic tiles and has furthermore a production of frit (glass work). The annual production capacity is:

"Śląsk" Production Company: 5.7 million m2 of floor tiles
"Pomorze" Production Company: 12.7 million m2 of wall and floor tiles
"Mazowsze" Production Company: 10.3 million m2 of floor tiles
"Mazury" Production Company: 11,100.00 tons of frit.

Ceramic tile production utilizes mineral materials, which after mixing and pul-verization create a ceramic mass. For production of ceramic tiles the method of press moulding of loose masses is used. The material passes through stove dry-ers - in which excess water is evaporated from a stream of milled and blended mineral material pulverized in counter-current. After this the chemical material is baked in a manner, which allows for achieving required physical parameters of the product. A direct aim of the baking is to harden and fix the shape and obtain resistance defined in appropriate product standards. Apart from the above-mentioned operations, the company for the purpose of glazing and decoration of tiles has a center for preparing materials consisting in: milling of frit and mixing of dyes as well as preparing matrixes for screen printing process, etc.

The main raw materials are clays, kaolin, feldspar materials, dolomites and sil-ica materials. The air emissions from the plant are primarily: SO2, NOx, CO, CO2 and dust. These emissions are generated in the production and during fuel combustion. Industrial sewage is pre-treated in mechanical treatment plants due to high content of mineral suspension. The treatment is performed on sand traps and sedimentation tanks with the application of coagulation process. After the mechanical treatment the sewage is sent to Opoczno sewage treatment plant and the created sediment is dehydrated on filtration presses and returns after filtration in form of cakes to the beginning of the production process as an addi-tive to the clay mass.