creating new inks for use in the manufacture
of vinyl flooring that virtually eliminate hazardous
emissions.
Mannington Mills was one of eight companies receiving
awards at NJBIA’s 2005 Awards for Excellence Dinner
held at the Westin Princeton at Forrestal Village on
October 18.
“The winners were selected because they are the
best of the best. They have succeeded not only as private
sector companies, but in improving people’s lives
and our communities,” NJBIA President Philip Kirschner
told a crowd of 240 at the event. “As Mannington
Mills has shown, real environmental protection comes
from private-sector innovation.”
People do not think of vinyl flooring typically found
in one’s kitchen as being a source of air pollution,
but the fact is, many of the solvent-based inks used
in their colorings and patterns produce hazardous air
pollutants. Even though such air emissions are carefully
regulated, the people at Mannington Mills, Inc., a leading
manufacturer of all types of hard surface flooring,
decided they could do even better.
Mannington’s scientists developed a series of
water-based inks that drastically reduced the amount
of harmful emissions to the air. The use of solvent-based
inks creates air emissions that contain volatile organic
compounds (VOCs). These VOCs include hazardous air pollutants
and toxic compounds. Cleaning the production machinery
requires the use of solvents, which generates additional
hazardous waste that must be hauled away in tanker trucks.
These inks also create a risk of fire, have strong odors
and increase the risk of negative health effects.
In a process that took several years, Mannington’s
crew of scientists and researchers formulated new, safer,
water-based inks. By 1996, the new inks had reduced
VOC emissions to the air by 86 percent. Over the last
seven years, use of the new inks has cut total emissions
by 268 tons and completely eliminated the hazardous
air pollutants and toxic compounds from the company’s
emissions. Because the new inks can be cleaned up with
water or alcohol, instead of solvents, they are far
more environmentally friendly, eliminating the generation
of nearly 1.4 million pounds of additional hazardous
waste annually.
But Mannington did not stop there. Mannington’s
ink chemists continued to refine the formula, with the
goal of creating an ultra-low-VOC ink that would not
require the use of a thermal oxidizer (incinerator).
Thermal oxidizers burn and destroy VOCs created in the
manufacturing process, but they also consume a tremendous
amount of electricity and gas. Mannington’s goal
was to create nothing less than ink with VOC emissions
so low, thermal oxidizers would not be needed.
In 2003, that goal was achieved. Mannington’s
new inks far exceed the State of the Art (SOTA) standards.
SOTA requirements say that the inks have to be less
than 1.5 pounds of VOC per EPA gallon of ink. Mannington’s
inks achieved levels of 0.457 pounds and lower.
Since 1984, NJBIA annually has honored a select group
of its members with an Award for Excellence. The Awards
for Excellence winners demonstrate outstanding achievements
in one of four award categories: Environmental Quality,
Outstanding
Employer, Enterprise and Public Service. All NJBIA member
companies are eligible to be nominated.
An independent panel of judges reviewed the nominations.
Eighteen members of the Service Corps of Retired Executives
(SCORE) volunteered their time to conduct the judging.
They were joined by four members of NJBIA’s policy
committees: William Baney and Joann Trezza of the Human
Resources Committee, and Tom Eckhoff and John Kinkela
of the Environmental Quality Committee.
Mercadien P.C., Certified Public Accountants of Princeton,
verified the information supplied by the winning applicants.
With more than 23,000 members, NJBIA is the nation’s
largest state-level employer association.
 |
 |
Return to Scrapbook |
|
