posted by Wendy Stott
Published: April 15, 2011
In conjunction with the Fond du Lac Boy Scouts-Troop, Prestige-Pak will be hosting its’ second annual Arbor Day event this April 29th. As part of the company’s carbon reduction efforts, the flexible packager partnered with this same troop in 2010 to plant over 400 trees at their facility in Fond du Lac. This year they hope to place another 200 cedars and 100 pines in an adjacent space.
It’s not just about increasing production for Prestige-Pak’s president, Vince Kuber, it’s also about being an environmentally conscious neighbor.
“In the printing industry, you get to a point where expansion is necessary to keep good customers whose needs have grown beyond your capabilities” said Vince. Prestige-Pak customers were looking for better quality graphics and 8-color printing which they couldn’t provide with their existing presses.
The addition of a new press was necessary to satisfy primary customers and increase the company’s market share but it would require additional equipment that they hadn’t initially planned on purchasing. The presses that the company had been utilizing allowed them to operate without any air pollution control equipment. Under the Federal Clean Air Regulations, Prestige Pak would be over the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) limit of 100 tons of per year for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) at a single facility. To limit the initial capital cost of a VOC abatement system, Prestige-Pak considered purchasing a used catalytic oxidizer.
Thermal and catalytic oxidizers are used in a wide variety of industries for the destruction of air pollutants regulated by government agencies.
These process emissions are destroyed through the process of high temperature combustion, requiring some type of fossil fuel for destruction which emit Green House Gas emissions as a by-product. After consulting with engineers at Anguil Environmental Systems, Vince realized that a new Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO) would not only save them $130,000 in operating costs per year but it meant a dramatic decrease in Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Nitrous Oxides (NOX) when compared to the used catalytic system.
Prestige-Pak commissioned Anguil to install a 15,000 SCFM, dual chamber RTO capable of handling emissions from their four presses with the capacity for two more 8 or 10 color machines. The oxidizer achieves destruction through the process of high temperature thermal oxidation, converting the VOCs to carbon dioxide and water vapor while reusing over 95% of the released thermal energy to preheat the incoming emission laden airstream.
The high energy recovery within these oxidizers reduces the natural gas consumption required for VOC destruction and saves operating costs.
The wise decision to purchase the newer technology would not truly be recognized by Vince until the equipment start-up and destruction efficiency testing. Not only was the Anguil system destroying 99.3% of all VOCs from their process, it was operating without any natural gas as long as Prestige-Pak was running one press or more.
Recognizing that the facility can never reduce their carbon emissions completely, Vince says they will continually look for ways to improve efficiency throughout the plant and reduce the company’s carbon footprint. “Because trees absorb CO2 throughout their life cycle, we feel as though these Arbor Day events are very important to part of our environmental responsibility”.
As they mature, these trees will take more and more carbon dioxide from the air and generate oxygen for all of us.
