This database lists more than 200 waste dealers and material recyclers, businesses that conceivably can reroute some of the industry's solid waste from landfills to useful products. To alleviate landfilling of the industry's annual 150 million pounds of solid waste, researchers are exploring the addition of textile wastes to structural concrete and to soils of new roads and highways to gain more strength and stability. By modifying the plant's water-based manufacturing processes and installing more efficient washing equipment, researchers and company engineers cut the plant's total daily effluent from some 1.8 million gallons to 900,000 gallons. In the yarn-dyeing plant, researchers found that overflow rinses could be replaced with more efficient types and that some rinses could be completely eliminated without damaging the quality of the yarn. These changes reduced the second plant's effluent by 25 percent.
Source reduction serves to reduce both chemical and utility consumption.
Project leader Cook says in practice the company's volume of effluent was cut by half, and the technology exists to achieve additional benefits. Also, the results can be readily applied to other textile-related operations, he adds. Amendments to the federal Clean Air Act will require carpet manufacturers to have air permits by 2000. Accurate estimates of hourly emission rates will help determine a company's permitted operating capacity or application of control technologies or both. The approach was a snapshot, says Mulholland.