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1995 Winners

Award Categories: SMALL BUSINESS MID-SIZE BUSINESS LARGE BUSINESS

SMALL BUSINESS (Fewer than 100 employees)

Jrlon, Inc.
Jrlon, Inc. located in Palmyra, Ontario County, is a custom fabricator of plastics and metal products employing 70 people. Their pollution prevention project consisted of recycling of packaging materials, scrap, and used paint solvents. Also they developed a coating system that eliminated the use of the solvent methyl ethyl ketone resulting in zero VOC emissions. All this resulted while production increased.

Strathmore Products, Inc.
This is a joint application with the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency (OCRRA) located in Syracuse, Onondaga County. Strathmore Products is a manufacturer of industrial and architectural coatings employing 68 people. In conjunction with OCRRA, Strathmore Products developed a process and system whereby waste household paints are collected, processed, blended, reformulated, repackaged and resold to OCRRA at the cost of reformulating the paint. OCRRA, in turn, provides the paint to municipalities and non-profit agencies and organizations free of charge. To date, 10,280 gallons of paint that normally would have been landfilled have been recycled.

MID-SIZE BUSINESS (Companies with more than 100 but fewer than 500 employees)

Crosman Corporation
Crosman Corp., located in East Bloomfield, Ontario County, is a manufacturer of air powered rifles, pistols and ammunition employing 350 people. Their pollution prevention initiative was to reduce and eliminate, where possible, hazardous degreasing solvents. This was achieved by source reduction and substitution. The greatest success that Crosman has realized to date is the reduction of hazardous waste generated at the facility from a high in 1987 of 311.8 tons to 31.0 tons in 1994, or a 92.4% reduction. All this occurred while production increased by 130% during the same period of time. Crosman estimates that a total of 2,393.1 tons of hazardous waste was reduced during this period.

DuPont Yerkes
DuPont Yerkes, located in Tonawanda, Erie County, produces a polymethyl methacrylate polymer, which is the building product for counter tops and sinks, and a polyvinyl fluoride film, which is used for covering applications. A total of 499 people are employed at this facility. Their pollution prevention project consisted of a two-phased methylene chloride reduction starting in 1988 and finalized in 1993. As a result of this project, the total of methylene chloride decreased from 240,000 pounds in 1988 to 7,000 pounds in 1993, a total reduction of 880,000 pounds or 97% reduction.

U.S. Postal Service Vehicle Maintenance Facilities
This application covers the seven vehicle maintenance facilities (VMFs) in upstate NY. A total of 143 employees will maintain a fleet of approximately 4200 vehicles in the counties north of and including Albany County. The USPS Upstate NY VMFs perform over 7400 vehicle services per year. Wastes generated from these facilities are typical of those in any vehicle repair shop, such as spent parts degreasing solvents, used antifreeze, used oil and filters, used tires, waste paint and solvents and brake cleaners. A 74% reduction in the generation of hazardous petroleum waste solvents was achieved in the past two years and they estimate close to a 100% reduction of this waste stream by FY 1995. The USPS Upstate NY VMFs estimate over 90% reduction in total hazardous waste generation.

LARGE BUSINESS (Companies with more than 500 employees)

Anheuser Busch Brewery
The Anheuser-Busch Brewery, located in Baldwinsville, employs 900 people in the brewing of malt beverages. The Baldwinsville brewery uses a comprehensive, energy-producing pollution-prevention system to treat wastewater from the brewing process. This system, known as bioenergy recovery, uses anaerobic bacteria to consume the carbohydrates, proteins and other organic materials in the wastewater. It converts these materials to biogas --largely methane-- that is piped to the brewery's boilers for fuel. Undissolved solids from the treatment process are converted to compost and sold as a useful soil conditioner. Over the three years of operation, the bioenergy recovery system at the Baldwinsville brewery has generated more than 460 million cubic feet of methane. The annual output of methane is the equivalent of the natural gas needed to heat 750 homes in Onondaga County for a year. The brewery has successfully reduced the volume of other solid waste sent to the landfill. Solid waste was cut nearly 70 percent in the five-year period from 1990 to 1994. The brewery found markets for previous "waste" materials, such as the beechwood chips used in the fermentation of Anheuser Busch beers.

Delphi Harrison Thermal Systems
Delphi Harrison Thermal Systems, formerly Harrison Radiators Division of General Motors, is located in Lockport, Niagara County. Approximately 6800 employees are responsible for the research, development and manufacture of automotive heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and engine cooling systems. Delphi Thermal switch from chlorinated solvents, perchloroethylene, trichloroethylene, and CFCs, to an aqueous washing. In other areas, process and equipment changes were implemented to eliminate the need to degrease parts. The later process is known as "no clean." New equipment, process technology, process sequencing and handling procedures were required to implement the alternatives. Overall, environmental releases of the three solvents (to air and water) declined 87% from 1988 to 1993, or from 2.7 million to 350,000 pounds. During the same period , hazardous waste generated from the same processes declined 65% (871 to 305 tons). For 1994 the hazardous waste generation was 158 tons, a cumulative reduction of 82%.

Eastman Kodak Co.
The Kodak park site is a large, integrated manufacturing plant producing photographic films, papers and processing chemicals. Synthetic organic chemicals are also produced. There are approximately 22,000 employees at this facility. In 1992, Kodak Park's synthetic chemical division had sent over 28 million pounds of hazardous waste to the on-site Kodak Park chemical Waste Incinerator. Most of this was spent organic solvent. By year end 1994, this amount had been reduced by almost 4 million pounds, even in the face of increasing production volumes. This was accomplished by a systematic pollution prevention program which consisted of three major elements: source reduction through process redesign, increased recovery of solvents and decreased dependency on solvents in cleaning operations. Toluene emissions to air were reduced from 1,161,000 pounds per year in 1991 to zero in 1994.

Loral Federal Systems
The Loral Federal Systems facility in Owego provides advanced technology solutions in research, hardware and software development, systems integration, manufacturing and logistics support for a variety of federal, commercial and international programs. Approximately 3300 employees staff the 1.7 million square foot campus. Loral maintains active programs in pollution prevention involving chemical waste minimization, eliminating usage of ozone depleting and other target chemicals, solid waste recycling and a state of the art industrial wastewater treatment system. In 1990, Loral generated 308.6 tons of hazardous chemical waste and 232.7 tons of non-hazardous chemical waste for a 541.3 ton total. In 1994, 42.16 tons of hazardous and 5.88 tons of non-hazardous chemical wastes were generated representing a 91% overall reduction and an 86% reduction in hazardous chemical waste. These reductions were accomplished through substitution of less hazardous materials, new or modified manufacturing process equipment with reduced chemical usage and/or emissions, modification of manufacturing process quality parameters to decrease frequency of solution dumps/make-ups, reuse of solvents in processes having less stringent quality requirements and enhanced waste handling practices. By the end of 1993, Loral had eliminated all manufacturing uses of its chlorofluorcarbons. By the end of 1994, usage of dichloromethane, trichloroethylene and chlorobenzene had also been eliminated. Solvent substitution is the major factor in accomplishing these reductions.

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