An important aspect of development and functioning of OJSC “Ammophos” consists in its work  in the environmental protection sphere. The ecological control system of the enterprise is a component part of the common management control system.

The plant employs the “Ecology” program which provides for quantitative and qualitative indices of reduction of effect of the enterprise activity upon environment and decrease of consumption of natural resources. The enterprise spends more than 400 million rubles for operation and reconstruction of nature-conservative installations every year.

Waste reclamation and disposal

The technology of production of phosphorous-containing fertilizers is closely associated with generation of considerable amount of waste including phosphogypsum, pyrite cinder, silica gel, sludge of the acid flow neutralization station.
In order to store heavy waste, the enterprise is provided with the perfect installations at present, namely: sludge accumulators of phosphogypsum and pyrite cinder.
OJSC “Ammophos” has arranged for continuous monitoring of condition of the sludge accumulators and local geomonitoring of subsurface water. The work on monitoring subsurface water is performed in order to watch variation of the qualitative condition of subsurface water around potential contamination sources, to check reliability of the levels and barriers in the sludge accumulator, thus preventing polluted underground water from flowing into river Suda and Rybinsk water storage basin, and to rapidly eliminate the causes in the event of abrupt deterioration of subsurface water.
All types of waste which accompany the enterprise production processes are subject to storage and reclamation. The main directions of work with heavy waste consist in reducing waste output and in reclamation of accumulated waste.
The arrangement of pollution-free production of sulphuric acid is based on shifting the production systems to “short sulphur scheme” with intensification of sulphuric acid production process due to increase of concentration of sulphur dioxide in the production gas from 8.5 to 12.0%. Due to this technology, after accomplishment of reconstruction of the production lines (in 2007), generation of slag in sulphuric acid production will be stopped at the plant. As a result, the sludge accumulators will be gradually withdrawn from operation taking into account discharge of accumulated waste and thus the pollution source will be eliminated. In the course of reconstruction in June of 2003 and in September of 2004, two new installations on production of sulphuric acid from lumpy and granulated sulphur were put into operation, resulting in reduction of generation for 220 thousand tons. Annual shipping of more than 400 tons of pyrite cinder for the needs of cement industry and reconstruction of sulphuric acid production will make it possible to considerably improve the environment due to cessation of generation of pyrite cinders.

With the aim of processing by-products (fluorosilicic acid) in production of phosphoric acid, the aluminium fluoride production line was constructed at the plant in 1988, where fluorosilicic acid was used as the main raw material. In 2005 the reconstruction work on increase of capacity of the aluminium fluoride production line will be completed, thus making it possible to increase the amount of processed fluorosilicic acid up to 22 thousand tons per year amounting to 25% of generated by-products and to reduce generation of disposable sludge left after neutralization of acid flows in production of phosphoric acid by 16 thousand tons per year.
In 2004 OJSC “Ammophos” processed more than 700 thousand tons of waste and delivered more than 430 thousand tons of waste to third parties as secondary material resources.

Reduction of Impact upon Atmosphere

As stipulated in normative documentation, the enterprise employs a control system intended to observe the maximum permissible discharge levels specified for emitting sources, as well as a system for monitoring the ambient air condition in the sanitary and protected area of the enterprise and in settlements located nearby.
Gases generated in the course of production undergo multistage purification prior to getting to the emitting sources. The enterprise uses 68 dust-collecting plants. Their efficiency is as high as 99%. The chemical production line contains various types of gas cleaning installations producing emissions which depend on specific features of chemical composition and aggregative state of harmful impurities.
So, in production of sulphuric acid cleaning of gases from the cinder dust is performed by method of “dry cleaning” of gases including mechanical cleaning in cyclones and electrical cleaning of gases in dry electric filters. The roaster gas is cleaned from the sulphuric acid mist in “wet” electric filters.
In production of fertilizers the effluent gases are cleaned from dust, ammonia and fluorides in absorbers due to contact of the gas to be cleaned with flushing liquid.
In production of phosphoric acid the gases are cleaned from fluorides in aeromixers due to contact of gas with the flushing liquid under the action of centrifugal forces.
In production of aluminiun fluoride use is made of a system for cleaning fluoride-containing  gases which consists of two stages, namely: cleaning of gases in a group of cyclones and absorption of fluorides.
A considerable scope of work is carried out at the enterprise on reconstruction  of gas-cleaning systems in the production lines, including:
- two new technological systems on production of sulphuric acid are put into operation in the sulphuric acid production line. Such systems employ more perfect technology and use high-rate absorbing equipment including the liquid and mist separators;
- intensification of the existing absorption system is implemented in the fertilizer production line by way of creating an additional stage of absorbing the contaminants with increased volume of gas mixtures undergoing cleaning.
The reconstruction performed at the enterprise by now made it possible to reduce the amount of contaminants released into the atmosphere. So, in 2004 the emission of contaminants was reduced for 235.2 tons as compared with 2003. The specific index of emission into the atmosphere per a ton of products was decreased for 10%.

Protection of water basin

The main task of protection of the water basin is creation of a water usage system having the maximum level of waste water reclamation, reduction of consumption of river water for production needs by way of using purified waste waters in production processes.
At present, the river water is used only for the needs of heating and power plant, for making-up of water rotation cycles and for production of potable water, i.e. only in such spheres where usage of purified waste water is prohibited or is actually impossible from technical point of view.
A whole complex of water-purifying installations operates at the enterprise. Contaminated production waste water and atmospheric precipitates collected from the plant grounds undergo multistage purification and are then partially returned to the production line for use and the residual water is discharged into river Koshta.
Quality of the discharged residual water is checked according to more than 30 parameters. The data of analytical control make it possible to believe that quality of effluent water is improved every year. Thus, the total index of contamination of effluent water, i.e. toxicity, at the end of 2004 was 2.5 times lower than its level in 2003. The enterprise conducts in-house and external ecological audit every year. In the course of such audit the experts analyze and estimate the results achieved in the environmental protection and conservation of natural resources, including their compliance with current environmental legislation in order to work out the relevant recommendations on further development of the ecological management system.

At present OJSC “Ammophos” carries out the work on bringing the ecological control system of the enterprise into compliance with the requirements of international standard ISO 14001.