Climate change, environmental impact and carbon footprint. These are just a few of the phrases haphazardly thrown around nowadays to assert the need for recycling programs across the nation and around the globe. One phrase often overlooked, however, is economic recession. While many assign credit for the environmental movement to the men and women of the 1970s, the value of recycled goods was actually emphasized decades before that. It was the economic depression of the 1930s and 40s that brought conservation and recycling to the forefront of the American mind. The stock market crash made money scarce and the pair of World Wars that followed necessitated the rationing of goods. Rather than see this as a breaking point, Americans founded an industry, recycling. [Continue Reading Article]

Lean manufacturing—if you’re in industry, I’m sure you’ve been hearing this concept a lot in recent years. It claims to be a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste while at the same time, improving the product and maximizing customer value. While it may be true that the recession and mainstream environmental concerns may have something to do with Lean’s new found popularity, it’s actually not a new concept, but rather the business model of many established and successful companies, including Ford, Johnson & Johnson and Lantech. Lean has been in development the last 5 to 6 decades, and the official term was coined in the early 90s. If switching to lean means a higher quality product and higher efficiency and significant savings, why isn’t every company doing it? [Continue Reading Article]

Air conditioners are probably the most necessary of all luxury and comfort items, especially if you inhabit a warm climate. I live in Michigan, which yes, in the winter months is unbelievably cold, but in July and August, 90 degrees and humid isn’t that uncommon. I’ve also never lived in a house with central air conditioning; so I know—a hot, sunny, humid day without AC is almost torture…until you get your energy bill, that is. Standard air conditioning systems have been the established method of cooling residential and commercial buildings since they first appeared in the 60 because are so effective. Put on full blast, walking into your house is like walking into the Arctic Circle. However, they suck up energy and are probably the most un-green system in your house. During peak summer months, AC is responsible for about 100 million tons of carbon emission each year. [Continue Reading Article]

A surprising 15% of American car owners never wash their cars; they just let the rain take care of it. Many wash their vehicles in their driveway with a hose and household cleaners. Some claim they don’t have time, others don’t want to pay for a professional cleaning. Today, there are 100,000 professional car washes in the United States. Whether you’re part of a small business or working for a large chain, owners of car wash equipment need to advertise the benefits of their company to the public. Virtually every type of car wash system used today—whether touchless, coin-operated, automated or hand-operated, has advantages that far outweigh the alternatives. Perhaps the most attractive advantage to the consumer, using professional car washes is a money-saving method of protecting an expensive investment. Washing a car twice a month can protect from environmental factors, including acid rain, salt on roads during the winter and bird droppings, all of which can cause serious damage over time. These unavoidable issues will harm the finish, age the car and significantly decrease its overall resale value—on average, about 20%. [Continue Reading Article]

Within the past 5 years or so, the concept of reducing emissions has been the automotive industry’s most popular issue. It’s all over their commercials, boasting fuel economy and environmental friendliness. Though less advertised, non-road diesel engines, including forklift trucks, are no exception. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working since 1996 on a 4-tiered program to greatly reduce emission pollutants and sulfur content in fuel. Program From 1996 until last year, non-road diesel engines have complied with lenient emission standards and still accounted for 44 percent of diesel particulate matter (PM) emissions and 12 percent of total nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, an excessively large amount of total emissions from mobile sources. So in January of 2008, the EPA put the 4th tier into effect. The new standards involve models built in 2008 and later and aim to reduce 90% of NOx and PM emissions, in comparison to unregulated engines. They are also reducing sulfur in fuel to 15-ppm. [Continue Reading Article]

This last April, British environmentalist and adventurer David de Rothschild set sail in a catamaran he had constructed entirely from recycled PET bottles. As a statement to the growing global problem of ocean pollution and the need for higher recycling standards, de Rothschild planned to sail to what Planet Green Bottle calls "Plastic Soup", a floating mass of plastic waste nearly the size of Texas suspended in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This British adventure-seeker may have found the most creative way yet to call attention to this pending environmental risk, but plastic engineers and manufacturers have been working towards a solution in more conventional ways for many years. Polyethylene terephthalate, or "PET", is a petroleum-based resin and may be broken down and recycled almost indefinitely. The addition of dies, fiberglass and other composite materials reduce PET's recyclability, but the majority of PET materials, such as the beverage bottles out of which Mr. de Rothschild constructed his boat, are recycled at a cost relative or lower than that of purchasing virgin materials. Still, many water bottles, soda bottles and other beverage containers never make it to the recycling bin, ending up in landfills, or worse: the Pacific's Plastic Soup. [Continue Reading Article]

“Pollution Control can be very expensive!” you may say. And you’d be right. It can be. With ever increasing pressure to reduce emissions of gaseous pollution (and a company’s carbon footprint), many are choosing to install fume abatement systems on process exhausts where pollutants are present. In fact, regulations require pollution control equipment for many industries. The popularity of the Thermal Oxidization process for pollution control is, for the time being, high enough that it is considered the norm. Some companies have to endure the cost of cleaning exhausts for the environment. That is the responsibility element companies have to get used to. But it doesn’t have to be all bad news. I would bring to your attention several possibilities of secondary Heat Recovery worthy of your consideration. Process exhaust Heat Recovery can offer exceptional payback. The right industrial-grade air to air heat exchanger, correctly designed, engineered and built for your application, can allow you to reduce negative impact on the environment and your operational energy costs – dramatically. For instance: If you have a Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO) abatement system you know the final outgoing RTO exhaust temperature is higher than the incoming process air temperature. If, for example, you have 200°F entering the RTO from your process, the RTO exhaust could be as high as 400°F – even higher if the bypass is open. When RTOs are sold with high thermal efficiency expectations, companies often overlook the energy recovery potential of the RTO application. [Continue Reading Article]

For the last several months, we’ve been slowly but steadily fostering a “Green Ideas for Industry” category here on the IQS Newsroom. Not only do we want to keep track of some of the vital shifts the US manufacturing industry is making towards sustainable production, but we would also like to extend kudos to the companies listed on our directory who are making that shift possible. Many of our advertisers have been making strides in sustainable manufacturing, recycling and environmentally responsible construction despite economic difficulties and an overall resistance to change within the industry. Today we’re going to take a look at Ohio Gratings’ environmentally friendly grating products – and how you can earn LEED points by building with them. [Continue Reading Article]

With all the “green” alternative energy, recycling and sustainable manufacturing facilities popping up across the U.S., it seems only fitting to talk about heat exchangers. Recycling re-usable materials like aluminum, steel, HDPE, rubber and pulp products is a topic of frequent discussion in both consumer and manufacturing industries, but what about energy recycling? Industrial facilities and process manufacturers in pharmaceutical, bio-diesel, pulp and food process industries have been using the heat exchanger – a rather basic design concept – for decades to transfer heating and cooling. In recent years engineers have been tweaking the design, replacing typical coolants with gases or liquids which need to be heated anyway, allowing facilities to recycle their own energy. Automotive radiators, heater cores and evaporators work this way, with tubes of liquid coolant absorbing excess energy from the engine, which is then blown by fans into the car interior as heating. [Continue Reading Article]

This White Paper presents the proven ecological benefits and LEED application guidelines of infra-red heaters. Data provided by industry research and a LEED Accredited Professional (AP). Introduction The green building movement is gaining tremendous momentum on a national front, and is exemplified by the rising costs of energy. But what exactly does building green mean? ‘Green’ is a general term that can describe a wide range of practices such as energy savings, water conservation, recycling, sustainable site development, and the list goes on. In fact, LEED, the benchmark rating system for green building, has six (6) different categories used to evaluate a green project. Although all of these categories are considered green, arguably one such item carries a greater impact on the environment than all others combined; energy conservation. This is evident through the credit distribution scheme for LEED-NC (New Construction). [Continue Reading Article]

Chinese company Suntech, a heavyweight in global solar manufacturing, announced its plans last week to build another solar cell manufacturing facility here in the States, although they won’t decide where for another six months. Clearly these companies see an economic advantage to solar manufacturing here in the United States. Along with new tax breaks and federal incentives for renewable energy manufacturing, companies like Schott and Suntech see the benefits of setting up manufacturing close to customers – which means they’re anticipating an imminent demand in the US for solar energy. In the wake of losing hundreds of domestic manufacturers and hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs to the recession, pumping up the US solar manufacturing industry looks like a pretty great idea. [Continue Reading Article]

To be sure, the manufacturing community has come a long way in terms of microtechnology. Not only have acid etching and photochemical etching helped manufacturers hurdle significant cost and time barriers, but it has dramatically increased our capacity for fabricating the precision micro-etched parts which are essential to manufacturing precision electronics and communications equipment. No longer are our precision parts manufacturers limited to what metal engravers can etch by hand scratch by agonizing scratch; with chemical and photochemical metal etching, the possibilities are virtually limitless. For all of the benefits of the chemical and photochemical etching, the process has its drawbacks. As with plastic, a seemingly time, cost and fuel efficient alternative to non-disposable packaging, photochemical etching produces considerable quantities of hazardous waste which are difficult to recycle and dangerous to dispose of. Large quantities of specialty and hazardous chemicals and gases, particularly chloride, must be manufactured and either recycled, a costly process, or disposed of at the hazard of the environment. Yet chemical etching has been integrated into the global manufacturing processes of so many mobile phones, automotive parts, computer chips and other communication and electronics devices that these concerns remain largely overlooked. [Continue Reading Article]

Since even before the industrial era, humans have been concerned with air pollution control. As early as the beginning of the 1300s in London, smoke pollution was a problem that Edward I recognized by enacting a ban on burning soft coal. However, that policy did not stick, and once the Industrial Revolution began in the late 1700s, air pollutants increased rapidly because of the dramatic shift to machine-based processes. Steam power fuelled by coal was introduced in the First Industrial Revolution of the 18th century and used for factory machinery. Steam-powered transportation became prevalent during the Second Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, with the internal combustion engine and electrical power generation making their appearance at the end that century... [Continue Reading Article]

Included in President Barack Obama’s historical inauguration speech was a striking statement on his vision for the future of our energy industry. “We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” Perhaps this statement sounds a little over-the-top to you – a little too epic. But honestly, what could be more epic than shifting the world’s energy source from petroleum to wind energy, solar power and compressed air? So far it seems President Obama is making good on his word. According to an article published today in the Washington Bureau, the U.S. Interior Department has “cleared the way” for domestic offshore wind farms by finalizing guidelines. Projects are being considered for constructing wind farms off the United States’ Atlantic coast, namely Rhode Island and Massachusetts. A project long delayed by the previous administration’s procrastination in laying out legislative guidelines for offshore windfarms (and by the Kennedy family’s distaste for having the view from Martha’s Vineyard off Cape Cod marred by wind turbines), it looks like a shift from offshore oil fields to offshore windfarms are soon to be underway. [Continue Reading Article]

In honor of this week's "Green Week" celebration, we've compiled a list of 8 companies listed on our sites who demonstrate a strong commitment to environmental sustainability, health and personal safety. These guys think it's easy being green. [Continue Reading Article]