Practice Modification

Luke Air Force Base, located in Glendale, AZ recently evaluated all parts washers and gun cleaners. In August 2004, the paint gun cleaning waste stream, which was the largest hazardous waste stream, was reduced by 99 percent by investigating emerging technology and testing the equipment prior to purchase. Solvent is now regenerated in-house, with the hazardous constituents removed by filtration and concentrated in small circular cakes. Changing the process paid back within four months by reducing disposal costs from $34,000 to $4,000 in 2004. Luke also found that the new process reduced service costs by 82 percent and increased productivity of work centers by 85 percent.

Luke AFB, also looked at process changes in its flightline maintenance activities. Previously, aircraft technicians continually had to clean up JP-8 jet fuel spills when the aircraft engines shut down. When an F-16 powers down, the engine actually does a fuel dump, creating a lot of waste. In order to eliminate the fuel spillage on the flight line, the base aircraft maintenance squadron designed a new fuel plug – basically a metal cap that threads inside the dump line to contain the fuel and then can be recovered. The new plug reduced spillage by 98 percent. Because less sorbent pads are now used, disposal and related fuel consumption costs declined by $119,000. And the Air Force issued a service-wide Technical Order to switch to the new plug. For more information, please contact Jeffery Schone at (623) 856-4166 or Jeffery.Schone@luke.af.mil.

Marine Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina, replaced the use of chlorine gas with automatic non-gaseous injection systems in all swimming pools. The new systems use 12 percent hypochlorite and carbon dioxide for pH control, thereby preventing potential chlorine gas leaks. Additionally, Parris Island upgraded its wastewater treatment system and drastically reduced the amount of chlorine and sulfur dioxide used in the treatment processes. The new system uses smaller tanks equipped with automatic shut-off valves, eliminating the potential for air pollution through gas leaks. In total, the new system reduced chlorine use by 62.4 percent and sulfur dioxide use by 77.5 percent. For more information, contact Kathleen Stiles at (843) 228-3400, stileskm@mcrdpi.usmc.mil.

The US Coast Guard Civil Engineering Unit, Providence, Rhode Island, uses Easi-pour lids on their paint cans to prevent wasted paint. The lids make it easier to pour the paint in smaller quantities, and also prevent spills. For more information, contact Craig Edmunds at (207) 767-0368. For more information about Easi-pour paint can lids, visit http://www.easipaint.com.au/category1_1.htm.

The United States Postal Service's Alabama District, Birmingham, Alabama, reduced waste generation by 4 million pounds over the course of 18 months through the increased use of paperless communication and better materials management. In July 2001, the District Manger launched a program that mandated that correspondences only be sent electronically and discouraged the printing of hard copies unless a good justification could be made. In concert with this initiative, the District implemented new electronic reporting systems that replaced the use of paper for functions including time clocks, travel approval, and various human resources activities. For more information, contact Edward C. Abrams at (205) 521-0405, eabrams@email.usps.gov.

Another waste prevention effort through paperless means is the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Yucca Mountain Project (YMP) in Las Vegas, NV. The Bechtel SAIC Company (BSC), who manages the YMP, implemented a Paper Use Reduction Campaign that created incentives for employees to recycle. With the support of the employees, BSC eliminated an average of 12,000 paper copies per year.
The BSC followed a five-step plan as outlined in a comprehensive Environmental Management System (EMS):

• Step 1, Achieve Management Buy In: This EMS established aggressive goals for paper reduction so that the employees committed to and gained awareness of the recycling objectives.
• Step 2, Define the Game Plan: The BSC made many administrative changes, such as leasing Energy Star centralized, duplex printers. The 50 percent paper reduction goal was the driving force for many of the policy changes, which included requirements to use double-sided copying and electronic announcements and to print only the needed portion of a document.
• Step 3, Get the Word Out and Establish Employee Ownership: The facility increased employee awareness of the policy changes through such media as onsite electronic media publications, to promote acceptance of a paperless workplace. Many employees were reluctant to change, so the educational component helped persuade them.
• Step 4, Monitor How You Are Doing and Get Employee Feedback: This step tracked the amount of paper purchased and the amount of consumables managed through disposal or recycling. More importantly, this step welcomed employee input to the program.
• Step 5, Celebrate Success: Open communication helped the employees at the YMP to eventually embrace the revised system. Through dedication, BSC managed to save $24,000 on paper materials and labor.

The Chattahoochee Forest National Fish Hatchery, Suches, Georgia, reduced the amount of hazardous materials used in daily operations and significantly decreased the threat of contamination of nearby waterways. Hatchery personnel identified a non-hazardous alternative to the use of formaldehyde to disinfect eggs prior to hatching. Instead, hatchery personnel switched the growth medium from an incubator to egg hatching jars, which by design, prevented fungal growth. After the switch, the use of formaldehyde went from 50 gallons a year to zero. Hatchery personnel also conducted an inventory of all the chemicals stored on site. Personnel itemized 200 distinct substances ranging from toxic chemicals to common cleansers and disposed of outdated and unused products. As a result, the hatchery reduced the storage of chemicals by 60 percent and reduced waste by 50 percent. For more information about Chattahoochee Forest National Fish Hatchery's Hazardous Materials Pollution Prevention and Minimization Program, contact Deborah Burger at deborah_burger@fws.gov, (706) 838-4723.

The Lemoore, California Naval Air Station significantly minimized release of hazardous chemicals by installing an ethylene oxide abator unit at the installation's hospital. Now, instead of disposing of the ethylene oxide into the air, the new unit converts 99 percent of the ethylene oxide into benign substances before release. For more information, contact Don Roberts at (559) 998-4070.

Technological advances play an especially important role in eliminating waste from photography labs and x-rays. New processes allow silver to be recovered from medical facilities, dental offices, and in photography laboratories. The Veteran's Affairs Medical Center in Danville, Illinois and Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington, both recover the silver used in dental X-ray tabs. In addition to recovering silver from x-rays, the Marine Corps Base on Parris Island converted its photography lab to digital photography, eliminating the need for the slew of chemicals necessary for traditional film developing For more information about Danville Medical Center, contact Sharon Williams at (217) 554-5667, Sharon.Williams3@med.va.gov and for more information about Fairchild Air Force Base, contact Diane Wulf at (509) 247-2313, diane.wulf@fairchild.af.mil. For more information about Marine Corp Recruit Depot at Parris Island, contact Johnsie Nabors at (843) 228-2779.

The NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX recently converted from traditional photography to digital photography to prevent waste pollution. Through the development of an innovative, digital front-end solution, NASA has eliminated 100 percent or 5 million pounds of annual waste. To obtain both a high production photograph and a waste-free environment, NASA had to perfect a hybrid digital printing process that uses conventional wet processing. Conventional digital photography uses a processing method that does not produce results that can be archived. Thus, NASA developed a hybrid process that uses lasers or lights in order to expose light sensitive photographic materials. Once exposed, the light sensitive materials are put through a wet process. The entire process creates a photograph that can be archived for several years which satisfies the needs of NASA. In addition to eliminating paper waste, NASA also is eliminating chemical waste through a program titled "Zero Discharge System." This system converts 95 percent of the chemicals used to wash the photographs into de-ionized water than can be reused, so that fresh water is no longer needed. The Zero Discharge treatment system utilizes the following steps: reverse osmosis, pH adjustment, ozone oxidation, vacuum distillation, UV oxidation, and de-ionization. NASA has shared this knowledge at numerous conferences so that other agencies and organizations can follow in its footsteps. For more information, contact Sandra Parker (281) 483-3119, sandra.a.parker@nasa.gov.

The Crane Army Ammunition Activity, a tenant of Crane Division Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, had planned on incinerating 27,654 marine location markers that had failed an acceptance test, a process that was estimated to cost $637,000. Instead, the team disassembled the markers and reused many of the parts to create demilitarized versions of marine location markers. In total, the reuse of more than 52,000 pounds of red phosphorus resulted in a total cost savings of more than $2.6 million and a project waste diversion rate of 80 percent. For more information about the reuse of marine location markers, contact Doug Johnson at johnsond@crane.army.mil, (812) 854-1481.

The Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico developed a method to decontaminate plutonium-exposed glove boxes in place instead of disposing of them. The glove boxes are brought into contact with an electrolytic solution, and a current is run through the solution. The radioactive materials are removed by the solution, and the solution can be reused. For more information, contact Douglas Wedman at (505) 665-7140, dwedman@lanl.gov.

In less than two years, Randolph Air Force Base in Texas went from being a large quantity generator of hazardous waste (generating over 30,000 pounds annually) to a small quantity generator (generating less than 5,000 pounds annually). This 83 percent reduction was the result of innovative strategies to reduce and reuse wastes at the Texas installation that would otherwise be disposed of at great expense. For instance, instead of disposing of contaminated gasoline, it is now sent to a refinery to be reprocessed back into a usable fuel. The wastewater treatment system now uses electro-coagulation to remove heavy metals, which allows the wastewater to be discharged into the base sewer system. Hazardous materials generated by aircraft maintenance operations are now sold, procedures exist for managing fuel, oil, and lube spills, and the scope of the aircraft tire disposal program includes vehicle tires. For more information, contact John Wildie at john.wildie@randolph.af.mil, (210) 652-3079.

The VA Insurance Center in Philadelphia reached a major milestone at the end of September - one hundred percent of all veterans insurance death claims processed in a paperless environment. Paperless processing has decreased claims processing time from 2.68 days to1.86 days, a 31% reduction. Insurance's Paperless Office Initiative began in 1999 with the mailing 1.7 million beneficiary designation forms to policyholders for updating. As new forms were returned, they were imaged and became part of the VA Insurance online system, VICTARS (Veterans Insurance Claims Tracking and Response System). Following that, all incoming and outgoing claims documents (e.g., correspondence, claim forms, beneficiary designations, applications) were scanned, indexed, stored and retrieved online as electronic images. These images are automatically distributed to the appropriate staff and move through the processing and review stages electronically rather than from desk to desk. Currently, over five million images are available online so that Insurance staff can quickly retrieve documents and answer veterans' questions. In addition to the reduction in processing time, the retirement of paper insurance folders saves more than $2 million each year. VA Insurance is already working on the next stage of the Paperless Office Initiative, making Policyholder Services Division work processing paperless. For more information, contact Barbara Matos at Barbara.Matos@mail.va.gov.