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Water Conservation Resources
Industry Case Studies/Other Resources/Technologies/ Tips
Industry Case Studies
Advance Circuits Reduces Water Use Though specific cleanliness criteria for boards were not established, the printed circuit board manufacturer implemented most of the good housekeeping and flow rate reducing suggestions, which should significantly reduce water use.
Advanced Flex Installed a Water Recycling System
The printed circuit manufacturer reduced water use by 14 million gallons per year to save $41,000 and eliminate its impending SAC of $318,200.
Alpha Ceramics Reuses Cooling Water Water is used to keep the kilns cool. To reduce water use, two sets of three kilns were plumbed together in a series. Reusing cooling water saved $40,200 annually in water use and sewer fees.
ATMI Contains Costs with ISO 14001 ISO 14001 proves successful for ATMI's Minneapolis manufacturing site, reducing water use and waste, saving the company $103,000.
Batch Rinse Reuse Abby Science Labs reuses its tanks rinses to formulate into the next batch. instead of putting them down the drain.
Crenlo Saves Nearly $100,000 by Reducing Paint Filter Waste and Water Reduced paint arrestor waste and evaluated opportunities to conserve water and chemicals at this fabricator of sheet metal products, including cabs for agricultural and construction industries.
Deburring Tumblers a Source of Mercury Burr Technology Inc. exceeded the legal wastewater limit of two parts per billion of mercury and was given 30 days to reduce wastewater mercury levels.
General Mills Saves Over $27,400 by Reducing Water and Sewer Costs The company faced a one-time wastewater SAC fee of $135,000. By evaluating water uses throughout its plant, General Mills was able to act and reduce water use by 41%. An additional $27,400 came off the SAC after a MnTAP intern helped with equipment changes and repairs, as well as split streaming the softened water.
Hoffman Engineering Saves $32,000 Annually by Reducing Water Use in Painting Pretreatment Hoffman Engineering reduced fresh water use by at least 3.5 million gallons per year, saving $32,000 annually.
Leaks at Smith System Manufacturing Repairs at this company saved $24,000 annually.
Lifecore Biomedical Reduces Water and Sewer Costs The company removed unnecessary equipment and repairing water valves reduced water use by 3.86 million gallons a year, saving $69,000 a year plus an anticipated $157,000 in one-time SAC fees.
Lou-Rich, Inc. Saves Over $42,100 by Reducing Water and Chemical Use Water used in cleaning and cooling operations was reduced by 8.9 million gallons per year through design improvements and monitoring.
Metal Treaters, Inc. Reduced Potential SAC When the heat treater added a new line with water intensive cleaning tanks it decreased water use 90% to reduce its SAC units, saving $66,000.
Minnesota Brewing Company, Brews Up Prevention Ideas The St. Paul brewery has saved nearly $400,000 annually over a four year period by working with pollution prevention a consulting firm.
Nilfisk-Advance Avoids SAC This floor cleaning equipment manufacturer in Plymouth, faced an increase in its sewer service availability charge (SAC). By reducing the flow of the non-contact cooling water the company saved $55,800 in sewer and water fees.
Pride of Main Street Dairy This seven-employee company used a team approach to identify problem areas and reduce water use.
Schroeder Milk Saves $400,000 through Product Savings and Water Conservation Using a pollution prevention team, Schroeder Milk Co., identified opportunities for process improvement, saving over $400,000 and 13 million gallons of water every year.
Sparta Foods Saves Nearly $10,000 Through Water Conservation Implementing water conservation options has reduced Sparta's water use by nearly 1.9 million gallons a year-saving almost $10,000 annually. They are working toward reducing water use by 25% overall.
Technical Plating Saves Over $45,000 by Reducing Water and Sewer Costs A MnTAP intern helped Technical Plating in Brooklyn Park improve flow control on one plating line and effluent reuse reduced water demand by 2.6 million gallons per year, saving $7,100 a year plus $44,100 in one-time SAC fees.
TRC Circuits Reduces Water McGyver Style The company's head of maintenance conducted simple process analysis and found the largest volumes of excess water use came mostly from human error.
Other Resources
Water Use Consultants. The consultants listed provide service to reduce water use and wastewater volumes.
Technologies
Dairy Plant Reduces Water Use and BOD Saving Over $26,000 Decreased water use by fine tuning the computer programming that ran its clean-in-place (CIP) systems which sanitize equipment. Saved over 8.5 million gallons of water and over $20,000 annually. Decreased biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) loading by 2.5%, saving an additional $6,000 per year.
Optimizing Your Curds and Whey Having a computer control cleaning production equipment, one
Minnesota dairy eliminated most of the waste caused by day-to-day
inconsistencies from cleaning.
Reducing Water and Chemical Use Helps Pillsbury Keep Its Cool Pillsbury Bakeries in Chanhassen is converting its recirculating cooling evaporator/condenser water system from a system that required chemical treatment of water to one that uses mechanical water treatment.
Optical Sensor Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. installed an optical sensor in its cheese manufacturing operation to reduce product lost down the drain.
Recirculating Cooling-loop System at St. Jude Medical By installing a recirculating cooling-loop system, St. Jude gained better control of its coating process, reusing about 10,000 gpd of water from the coating reactor cooling for makeup to the scrubber.
Tips
Water Conservation Tips Reducing water use can make your operations more efficient and save you money on the volume of water used and treated. A number of steps are outlined in this fact sheet that can help you reduce water use.
Dairy Waste Reduction Tips Find out what Minnesota dairy companies are doing to reduce wastewater and product losses. Includes 10 water conservation strategies.
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