Governor's Pollution Prevention Award Recipient - PPG Industries

The Governor's Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Pollution Prevention have been presented since 1986. PPG Industries, Inc. was one of eight recipients to receive the Award in 1996. These awards recognize outstanding commitment to improve Ohio's environment through pollution prevention. Evaluation criteria for the awards include: the reduction of waste at the source, recycling or recovery of materials, cost-effectiveness, ability of the program to serve as a model for others, and effectiveness in promoting prevention as the preferred long-term approach.

What is Pollution Prevention?

Pollution prevention is the use of source reduction techniques to reduce risk to public health, safety, welfare and the environment and, as a second preference, the use of environmentally sound recycling to achieve these same goals. Pollution prevention avoids cross media transfer (of wastes and/or pollutants) and is multi-media in scope, addressing all waste and environmental releases to the air, water and land.

PPG Industries, Inc.

PPG Industries Inc., Coatings and Resins Group, based out of Pittsburgh, manufactures automotive, residential, appliance and can coatings, as well as the resins that make up those products.

PPG Industries Inc. earned recognition by reducing the plant's waste generation. Since 1988, the Delaware plant has made dramatic progress in pollution prevention. In 1995, the plant generated 8,615,000 pounds less total waste (hazardous, non-hazardous and air emissions) than it did in 1988. This is a 62 percent reduction. The most significant contribution has been the reduction of hazardous waste. Concurrently, PPG reduced hazardous wastes by 906,200 pounds, a 64 percent reduction. These waste reduction results were achieved while production increased by 42 percent at the plant between 1988 and 1995.

The primary focus of the pollution prevention efforts was eliminating the waste stream at the source instead of treating it after it is generated. This included equipment modifications, procedural changes, raw materials substitution, using cross-function teams and employee awareness through education. These efforts have included large projects such as installing a decanter in the Cationic process to reroute wastewater back into the batch being processed instead of removing it as waste.

The benefits realized from the pollution prevention efforts include major savings in disposal costs, transportation costs, raw material costs, and labor costs. The Delaware plant also has benefited from an image as a good neighbor in the Delaware community.

PPG's pollution prevention successes have been the result of the effort and commitment from associates at all levels including the environmental staff, managers, engineers, floor supervisor, hourly operating personnel, office staff, lab technicians and chemists.

Pollution Prevention Activities

PPG Industries has demonstrated its environmental commitment through a successful, strategic approach to pollution prevention. This section briefly describes the major projects and initiatives that have been instrumental in the plant's pollution prevention success.

Wash Water Recycling

During the equipment cleaning process, wash waters generated were pumped to a water-based hazardous waste tank. Now, the wash water is collected in a portable tank and recycled back into the dirty tanks, thus reusing the cleaning water many times over.

Pigment Dispersion Mill Prep Reuse

Milling equipment must be prepped with virgin resins or solvents before a batch is started. The prep material is collected, saved and reused as an aid in cleaning of the mill after the batch is processed. The reused prep is used until it is no longer effective for cleaning. Then it is sent to an on-site solvent distillation system for recovery.

Batch Campaigning

The plant schedules the same or similar products to be manufactured consecutively on the same pieces of equipment. This allows product switching without the necessity of cleaning equipment. This reduces waste and also improves cycle time.

Equipment Upgrades

PPG installed a decanter on the Cationic Batch Stripper, reducing reactor jacket temperature adjustments, closing the process by installing closed mills, applying special coatings to tanks, and discontinuing the use of drain tanks, piping changes, and purchasing automated equipment.

Environmental Awareness Training

Through the participation of environmental personnel on department teams, pollution prevention training is a continuing topic of discussion as well as a plant-wide measurable goal.

Reduction in Defective Production

A 60 percent reduction of was achieved by implementing a corrective action tracking system. The system determines the root cause of the defective batch and then assigns resources to eliminate that root cause.

Cationic Waste Water

A decanter was installed in 1988 to separate the aqueous and organic streams as they were removed from each resin batch. The aqueous stream is rerouted back into the batch being processed instead of out of the system where it would be removed as waste. This project facilitated the return of approximately 87 percent of the water back into the process.

Filter Residue Recycling

The procedure entails draining the residual resin from the filter housing before flushing them with cleanup solvent. The resin is collected and pumped back into resin batches.

Sample Waste Recovery

Resin samples are reprocessed by adding them to subsequent batches of resin. As a result of the filter residue recovery and sample waste recovery, the plant recovered an estimated 5,000 gallons of resin in one year.

Ohio Prevention First

PPG is an active participant in the Ohio Prevention First initiative. Ohio Prevention First, established at the request of Governor Voinovich, is a voluntary planning initiative seeking a reduction in pollution generated throughout Ohio. This initiative provides an important opportunity for businesses and organizations to take a leadership role in environmental protection without the need for additional regulatory mandates.

Environmental Benefits

The projects have improved the environment by either reducing the pounds of pollution that are released into the environment or by replacing a toxic pollutant with a less toxic material. The many pollution prevention activities have resulted in a drastic reduction in the total waste produced by the Delaware plant since 1988.

Management Commitment and Employee Involvement

Pollution prevention is promoted throughout the PPG organization. PPG provides encouragement for employees to find pollution prevention opportunities by providing monetary rewards. The plant sets an aggressive goal for pollution prevention each year. Meeting this goal directly affects each employee's year-end bonus.

Transferability

All PPG plants throughout the world are encouraged to share their pollution prevention successes with the rest of the corporation. Successful pollution prevention activities are included in the PPG Coatings & Resins Waste Minimization Technology Transfer Handbook. The Coatings & Resins Group has a quaterly environmental newsletter that describes pollution prevention efforts at each facility.

For More Information

Mr. Philip Trew
Manager, Environmental, Health & Safety
760 Pittsburgh Drive
Delaware, Ohio 43015
(614) 363-9610

This is the 43rd in a series of of fact sheets Ohio EPA has prepared on pollution prevention. For more information, call the Office of Pollution Prevention at (614) 644-3469.