Community Light & Sound Inc.
POLLUTION PREVENTION

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Community Light & Sound Inc. owns and operates a manufacturing facility in Chester, Delaware County, with 122 employees and 99,000 square feet of floor space. The company manufactures loudspeaker systems for the music industry, reinforcement speakers for stadiums and voice alert systems, fiberglass horns and compression drivers for public address systems.

Community's Safety Committee has evaluated numerous employee suggestions for minimizing or eliminating manufacturing waste. In 1996, working with the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center, the company changed from top-down to flow line manufacturing. It joined the American Production and Inventory Control Society and began employee training. These combined efforts resulted in significant environmental accomplishments such as:

• Adding Styrid™ to all inbound fiberglass resins and gelcoat materials which reduced styrene emission 30 percent.
• Segregating, minimizing and recycling waste streams.
• Adopting the Energy Star program to reduce energy usage and costs.
• Reducing employee exposure to chemicals and the need for personal protective equipment.
• Reducing VOC's by using pressure-sensitive adhesives.
• Moving from solvent-based to water-based paints.
• Replacing polyfoam packing corners with 100 percent recycled pulp corners.
• Replacing acetone with di-acetone alcohol for cleaning.
• Recycling corrugated materials and encouraged recycling with suppliers.
• Recycling all desktop materials.
• Replacing styrofoam peanuts with shredded paper.
• Funding equipment purchases for employees with savings obtained via soda can and waste metal recycling.
• Reducing wood scrap by modifying purchasing strategy.
• Increasing wrapping composition from 30 percent to 60 percent recyclable materials.
• Using 100 percent recyclable polyfill batting material as a sound absorber in the speakers instead of fiberglass.

These changes have increased productivity by 35 percent. The company has also seen its workers compensation premiums drop by more than half and its insurance premiums drop by 12 percent.