Kaspar Wire Works, Inc

Year Submitted: 2011

Process: Electroplating

Industry: Metal Finishing

Wastes Reduced: Water

Location: Shiner TX

No. of employees: 300

Contact: Douglas Herber

Phone: 361-594-3327

Description:

Kaspar Wire Works, located in Shiner, Texas, is the largest manufacturer of newspaper vending machines in the world. As part of our desire to reduce water use, beginning in 1998 we took a phased approach that reduced water consumption by over 100 million gallons/year, an overall reduction of about 92%.

P2 Application:

We implemented several projects to address water usage.

1. The conductivity of the purchased water was a big issue. We spent about $90,000 to install a reverse osmosis system to reduce conductivity from 1100 to 50 micro-mhos. This allowed reuse of the rinse water. It also resulted in reducing chromic acid use by 80% and nickel chloride and nickel sulfate by more than 90%.

2. Hoses used to fill tanks were being left unattended by employees, thus tanks would overfill and run down the drains. By training employees and eliminating access to hoses, water consumption was reduced by 48 percent from 485 to 250 gallons per minute (gpm).

3. More water reduction occurred by installing relatively inexpensive flow restrictors on counter-flowing rinse water. Each restrictor cost about $8 each. This reduced water consumption down to 100 gpm for an overall water use reduction of 74 percent.

4. Using the overflow from the acidic rinse tanks to feed to the alkaline (base) rinse tanks further reduced water consumption. This is known as "paired rinsing" or "reactive rinsing."

The water consumption after all projects were implemented was reduced from 485 gpm down to 40 gpm, almost a 92% reduction.

• Total Cost Savings: $393,000.00
• Comments: The total estimated savings was $393,000 per year in avoided water, wastewater, and energy costs. It does not include the reduced cost of chemicals. The payback period is estimated to be 4 months or less.

Details of Reductions

• 111.0 - Select Below: of   Water
  Comments: Units = million gallons

• 53,800,000.0 - Gallon of   Wastewater
  

Additional Information :

Implementing the water saving projects not only benefited Kaspar, it also helped reduce water demand and increased wastewater capacity for the city. Approximately 43,000 gallons per day of water from overflowing tanks no longer was discharged to the city and the potential for violations of categorical effluent limits from this waste stream was eliminated. This represents an estimated savings of $160,000 per year in wastewater treatment costs paid to the city.

Another benefit of reducing the conductivity was an increase in the number of passes of water in the boiler from 4 to 90. This resulted in less make-up water and blowdown. Returning more condensate at a higher temperature to the boiler saved about $13,000 per year in energy costs for heating the boiler.

Source: TCEQ