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Gilmour Manufacturing Company
Gilmour Manufacturing Company, a subsidiary of Vermont American Corporation, is a major producer of lawn and garden products. Gilmour's Somerset plant manufactures plastic and zinc lawn and garden hose nozzles, menders, sprinklers, tank sprayers and a line of steel pruning tools. The company installed an ultra-filtration water treatment system in 1995 in response to permit requirements which required reducing water usage and eliminating discharge of non-contact cooling water. Gilmour designed and implemented a water usage reduction program to address the problem of wastewater generation. The two closed-loop test water systems they installed saved seven million gallons per year. Elimination of non-contact cooling water by switching to air-cooled compressors and the use of chillers on blow-molding machines saved an additional 10 million gallons. This change saves the company $16,500 a year in energy costs and Gilmour was able to shut down its private well, saving an additional $8,000 in treatment costs annually. By switching to a closed-loop cooling tower system in zinc die casting, the company eliminated overflow cooling water, eliminating the usage of 2.7 million gallons of water and saving $81,270 in water and wastewater treatment costs annually. The replacement of flow-through cooling water with tower-cooled chiller water in vacuum metalizers saves 1.2 million gallons and $12,265 in water and sewage fees. Water flow to a burnishing machine was reduced by 124,000 gallons, saving $3,730 in water and treatment costs. Capturing and reusing cooling tower overflow and rinse water saves 180,000 gallons of water and $1,800 in water and sewage fees. The company worked with paint vendors to reduce VOC and hazardous air pollutants. Since 1991, formulation changes eliminated Xylene and reduced hazardous air pollutants from 11.2 to 3.5 tons per year. The company replaced lacquer dip coating with electrostatic powder-coating to reduce annual VOC emissions from 13.74 in 1997 to 3.5 tons in 1998 and hazardous air pollutants further to only 0.3 tons. This saves an additional $12,445 in annual energy costs. The company totally eliminated sodium hydroxide stripper and paint waste to further minimize waste streams.
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Gilmour Manufacturing |
