THE ROBBINS COMPANY
Company Profile
Strategic Planning Study of a newly-installed closed-loop system to filter and purify wastewater, recover metals, and eliminate discharge. Business Benefits For an investment of $220,000, the Robbins Company reaped $117,000 in annual savings over original system. In addition, there were savings due to considerable fines and penalties the company would have accrued. Many of these benefits were not anticipated. Why Was Project Performed? The Robbins Company is a privately held company with sales of approximately $30 million. The firm's primary business is the custom designing and manufacturing of jewelry, awards, and promotional items. Most of the company's products require electroplating with valuable metals, such as gold or silver. The electroplating process requires large amounts of water and chemicals, and leaves behind a host of toxic residuals in the wastewater. Robbins managed this wastewater through an antiquated, inefficient system of settlement tanks, dating back to the era prior to serious pollution regulation. The system failed to remove a quarter of the water's waste, and as a result, the company would routinely violate it discharge permit and emit many times the allowed amount of waste into the brook. The fines resulted in such a large financial toll that the company's chief financial officer took over responsibility of the company's environmental management. In 1986, the company hired its first environmental manager, and gave him the resources and authority to bring Robbins into compliance. In 1987, Massachusetts regulators announced a plan to dramatically reduce discharges from all sources into the river into which Robbins discharges. To meet the more stringent standards would require Robbins to construct a large, very expensive wastewater treatment facility. The environmental manager began to investigate the concept of developing a zero-discharge system. The environmental manager estimated that the closed-loop system required an initial investment of $250,000 to $300,000. Although this comprises more than half of the company's annual capital expenditure budget, it was less than half the cost of installing a new wastewater treatment system. However, the closed-loop system came with many uncertainties-foremost among them uncertainty as to whether the system would even work. Initial contacts with Massachusetts technical assistance personnel indicated that such a system was feasible, although none was actually in operation in a similar facility. Nonetheless, the company president was supportive, as a zero-discharge system would remove the company from its debilitating struggle with regulations. Project Description The design of the zero discharge system evolved through the combined efforts of the Robbins Company, the Massachusetts technical assistance program, and the engineering firm hired by the company. The final design was composed of two subsystems: one for wastewater purification and one for metal recovery. The water produced by the wastewater purification subsystem was forty times cleaner than city water, and contributed to greater plating quality. The subsystem is designed with parallel filters and resins, allowing continued manufacturing during scheduled maintenance. The metal recovery subsystem uses electrolytic recovery to plate out metals captured in the water purification subsystem. Only two pounds of sludge are produced annually in the metals recovery subsystem. Because this sludge is composed of almost pure metal, it is more valuable to a refiner than precipitated sludge. Cost Considerations
The closed-loop system requires close coordination among all facility operations, as it is an integrated part of the manufacturing process, rather than an add-on, end of pipe solution. This means that, for example, the environmental manager must approve the introduction of any new plating chemistry into the system. With clear authority from top management, the environmental manager worked with floor managers and machinery operators to get buy-in on the new operations. This buy-in was eased, in part, because it was clear to all that the survival of the company itself was at stake. Analysis Upon completion of the system, the company realized it had not just been successful in achieving complete regulatory compliance, but that the new system was a major financial, risk reduction, and public image success. The investment of $220,000 led to substantial savings. The new system uses 500 gallons of water per week (to replace evaporative loss), compared to 500,000 per week in the old system. This results in an annual savings of $22,000. The new system reduces chemical usage ($13,000/year) and produces less toxic sludge ($28,000 in annual hazardous waste disposal and $40,000 in reduced laboratory analysis). In addition, the company receives $14,000 in annual revenue from sale of metals recovered from sludge. In total, the annual operating costs savings of $117,000 mean the system will pay for itself in about two years, even when the annual operating costs of $30,000 are taken into account. Not provided. Berube, Michael, et al., "From Pollution Control to Zero Discharge: How the Robbins Company Overcame the Obstacles". Pollution Prevention Review. Spring 1992. DISCLAIMER: This database presents a number of case studies developed in recent years by a diverse group of organizations. The concepts, terms, and approaches represented throughout the database represent many different philosophies and means of applying environmental accounting principles and don't necessarily reflect the position or views of the US Environmental Protection Agency. Through production of this database, the EPA is presenting many different possible approaches to environmental accounting without intending to endorse any one. | ||||||||||||||||||