ESG Report 2023

99 The complicated production process of pharmaceutical intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients involves different kinds of emissions. As such, Inner Mongolia Company has implemented sewage treatment system that integrates biochemical, physicochemical, aerobic, and anaerobic feature to handle different wastewater produced such as wastewater from production process, circulating cooling water, and equipment cleaning water. Since 2007, Inner Mongolia Company has built a sewage treatment station, and has been expanding and renovating it according to the demand during operation, covering a total area of 500 acres. Through the treatment process of “pretreatment + hydrolytic acidification + Upflow Anaeroic Sludge Blanket (UASB) + Cyclic Activated Sludge System (CASS) + catalytic oxidation + secondary sedimentation tank”, the sewage treatment station can effectively treat various water pollutants generated during the production processes in Inner Mongolia Company. The sewage treatment station is operated by professional technicians , and the system is designed with a processing capacity of nearly 50 , 000 cubic meters per day . The treated wastewater is then discharged to the reclaimed water reuse system for treatment, and the wastewater is fully reused to achieve zero wastewater discharge and completely avoid the risk of environmental pollution caused by wastewater discharge. In addition, Inner Mongolia Company strictly monitor chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) concentrations of the wastewater in the waste water treatment system, preventing underground water pollution triggered by the “running, emitting, dropping and leakage” of wastewater during the wastewater treatment process. Furthermore, Inner Mongolia continues to implement wastewater pollutant reduction projects to reduce the pressure on wastewater treatment facilities. To enhance the wastewater treatment goals, the Group has built a three-effect evaporation system and a multi-functional high-efficient waste mineral oil and mechanical vapour recompression (MVR) system as a backup facility to complement the existing MVR evaporation system in 2022. This ensures the stable operation of the company's sewage treatment system, reclaimed water recycling system, and the production system. 10.4.1 Wastewater Treatment Triple-effect Evaporation System Project The company has invested RMB12 million to build a new set of Triple-effect Evaporation System, with a designed processing capacity of 300 tonnes per day. This system is designed to treat concentrated wastewater generated during various production processes in order to reduce the operational load on the sewage treatment system and ensure the stable operation of the reclaimed water membrane system. Multi-functional MVR System The existing MVR evaporation systems in the company are used for pre-treatment of high-concentration wastewater during production processes. As the system's operation length increases, the failure rate of the equipment rises. To ensure the stable operation of the company's wastewater treatment system and reclaimed water system, we have constructed an additional multi- functional MVR system as a backup facility. The project was commissioned and commenced operations on 31 July 2023. Environmental, Social and Governance Report 2023 The United Laboratories International Holdings Limited