Alexandria Sugar Company was planning to increase the overall Egyptian local production capacity through producing sugar from beet root as a main product. Expected byproducts of the project were molasses and animal fodder, and the project plan additionally included refining raw sugar imported from abroad.
Alexandria Sugar Company commissioned Environics to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the proposed beet sugar plant and refinery.
Environics conducted a full document review and site investigations to prepare the EIA, which covered the construction and operation phases of two production lines of the beet sugar factory. The main processes that were assessed by the study were:
– Production of white sugar and molasses from beet; fodder from pulp; lime, and carbon dioxide
– Sugar refining
– Feed water treatment and steam production
– Treatments of make-up and biological industrial wastewater
– Management of waste produced from the production processes
The EIA comprised the following:
– Full description of the project, its processes, and its infrastructure requirements
– Description of the site’s baseline conditions, which covered:
o Physical Environment: climate; air quality and noise; topography; lithology; geomorphology; structural geology; hydrology; soils, and geological hazards
o Biological Environment: ecology and biodiversity value
o Social Environment: population; infrastructure; economic activities; agriculture; employment; health, and education
– Laws and regulations
– Comparison of the project’s alternatives
– Assessment of the potential impacts of the project’s construction and operation phases, and proposal of mitigation measures
– An Environmental Management and Monitoring Plan
– Summary of the interagency coordination and public consultation