POINT-SOURCE CONTROL AND A
MODIFIED OVERLAND FLOW LIVING FILTER ENABLES
RUBBER PRODUCTS PLANT TO MAINTAIN COMPLIANCE
Donald E. Bergmann. Environmental Engineer
Mark R. Stumpf, Project Engineer
Arthur F. Driscoll, Staff Engineer
Abbott Laboratories
North Chicago, Illinois 60064
INTRODUCTION
This paper describes recent improvements to wastewater treatment made at the Hospital Products plant of Abbott Laboratories at Spartanburg, South Carolina.   The
Abbott plant is located on approximately 20 acres in Bond Industrial Park, a part of
the Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina industrial complex.    The plant is operated
under the Hospital Products Division (HPD) of Abbott Laboratories and employs some
400 people.     Abbott, with   headquarters in North Chicago, Illinois, is a major pharmaceutical company and manufacturer of health care products with worldwide operations.
The plant operates on a 24-hour, five-day-a-week basis, fabricating a line of rubber
products including surgical gloves, baby nipples, and rubber-bonded-to-metal parts, and
injection-molded plastic parts for intravenous injection kits.
The plant is located in the Lawson's Fork Creek watershed in the Pacelot River
Basin.   Storm water and effluent from the Abbott plant discharge to Camp Creek which
is a tributary of the Pacelot River.   Camp Creek is spring fed and in dry weather its
flow stops.    The Pacelot River Basin was the subject of federal  and state   studies in
1974 prepratory to issuing National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)
permits for the industrial and municipal discharges.
An NPDES permit was issued to the plant in December 1974.   Limitations in the
permit were consistent with the federal guidelines for the latex rubber industry and set
interim limits which allowed the existing discharge to continue until October 1976, at
which time much stricter limitations would take effect.    Included in the 1976 limitations were stricter standards for five-day biological oxygen demand (BOD5), total
suspended solids (TSS), oil and grease, chromium and phenol.    Extensive upgrading of
the existing plant wastewater treatment system was required to meet the tough 1976
limits and a compliance schedule was included with the NPDES Permit.
EXISTING FACILITIES
Two separate systems were in existence:
1. A 20,000 gallon baffled settling lagoon used for primary treatment of process
wastewater.   This lagoon received all waste from the process waste sewer in the
production area (nipple, gloves, and injection molding) and removed the settleable
solids.   A separate process waste stream from the rubber-bonding operations, which
contained waste cooling water as well as cleaning wastes, bypassed the lagoon and
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