Volume 7, Number 5 October/November 2008 NEWS Smart Linking Closes Production-Waste Circles At the Biopark Terneuzen, an industrial development in The Netherlands, Civil Technical Manager Dick Englehardt and others identify industrial companies that might “marry” their operations so that one partner’s waste products might be used as raw materials or an energy source for the other. One Biopark Terneuzen success story involves Cargill Inc. (Wayzata, Minn.) and ethanol-producer Royal Nedalco (Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands). Nedalco uses the lower quality starches Cargill produces as feedstock to make alcohol.

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Water Efficiency: Corporations Setting the Tone

As drought and water shortage issues continue to affect an increasing number of regions worldwide, some U.S. corporations have increased their efforts to create and implement programs to promote water conservation and improve water efficiency.

The Coca-Cola Co. (Atlanta) last year announced an extensive water stewardship program involving a number of initiatives in the area of water efficiency, treatment and conservation. Also, Home Depot partnered with the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta) last year on community water conservation outreach program and General Electric Co. (GE; Fairfield, Conn.) announced a companywide goal to reduce water use by 20% by 2012.


FEATURES

Twofold Solution
A Georgia manufacturer’s new treatment system solves toxicity problem and reuses water

George Patrick, Don Deemer, Loren McCune and Terry Snell

Although the Bon L Manufacturing Co. (Newnan, Ga.) has long worked to be environmentally responsible, new biomonitoring requirements and an ephemeral receiving water led to permit violations. The company installed a new treatment system that not only solved its toxicity problem but also significantly reduced its water purchases from the city.
The company far exceeded Georgia’s water conservation goals during the state’s severe drought.

Reusing water onsite has cut city water needs from 15,100 to about 7600 m³/mo (4 million to about 2 million gall/mo), saving the company more than $200,000 per year and making Bon L the leading corporate citizen in Georgia during the drought.


Scale-B-Gone
A ballistics manufacturer finds that pH is the key to minimizing scaling

Jeremy R. Johnson, Arthur T. Sandy, and Nora C. Estopare

A ballistics manufacturer commissioned a new pH-control system to curb severe calcium carbonate scaling that had halved its treatment plant flows. Scaling can happen when wastestreams' thermodynamics (such as temperature and pressure) and chemistry (such as dissolved oxygen’s associated oxidation—reduced reactions and carbon dioxide’s associated carbonate chemistry changes at various pHs) cause naturally occurring, dissolved inorganic solutes in ground water to precipitate. The deposits, such as calcium and magnesium, typically produce a crystalline layer in treatment plant units and pipes.

The new pH-control system reduced the Langelier Saturation Index from more than 0.60 to below zero, indicating that treated water had no scaling potential.


BRIEFS
Quick updates on news of interest to the industrial wastewater management professional.


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