Section Six
INDUSTRIAL WASTES
D. OTHER INDUSTRIAL WASTES
81    SOLIDS RECOVERY AND RECYCLE AT A BATHROOM
FIXTURE MANUFACTURING PLANT
Shahab Shafai, Environmental Engineer
Earl E. Shannon, Regional Manager
CH2M HILL ENGINEERING LTD.
Waterloo, Ontario,
Canada
Barry Ferguson, Maintenance Manager
American-Standard,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
INTRODUCTION
American-Standard owns and operates a bathroom fixtures manufacturing plant in Metropolitan
Toronto. The manufacturing process at American Standard is shown in Figure 1. In 1988 this plant
generated over 1,500 tons of solid waste which was hauled to the Metro landfills at considerable cost
to American-Standard. In addition, the sludge storage capacity in the plant was very low and could
not be increased due to site restrictions, necessitating higher frequency of sludge transportation to the
disposal sites.
American-Standard in consultation with their Environmental Consultants, CH2M HILL ENGINEERING LTD. of Waterloo, Ontario, conducted a study for evaluating the feasibility of recovering
and recycling of its solid wastes. The study concluded that the waste streams generated in American-
Standard represented a very good potential for materials recovery and recycle. It was determined that
solids recycle was both technically feasible and environmentally and economically desirable.
For this reason, in 1988 an application to solicit funds from the Ontario Ministry of Environment
(MOE)'s 3Rs financial assistance program was prepared by CH2M HILL on behalf of American-
Standard. This program provided incentives to industry to recycle materials. The American-Standard
proposal was accepted by the MOE and considerable funding was made available to American-
Standard, which helped to accelerate the implementation of the materials recovery program.
The wastewater treatment and solids recovery and recycle system at American-Standard was constructed in 1989. The wastewater treatment and solids recovery system went into operation in the same
year. The partial startup of the recycle system occurred in April 1991 and by July 1991 the recycle
system was fully operational.
WASTEWATER TREATMENT AND SOLIDS RECOVERY
AND RECYCLE SYSTEM
General
Several process wastewater streams originate from the production operations. A schematic exhibiting the origin of these waste streams is shown in Figure 2. The waste streams are divided into two main
groups: glaze wastewaters, originating in automatic and manual spraying operations; and slip wastewaters from a finishing machine, finishing booths, a wet dust collector, funnel washing and other
sources. All of these wastewaters were previously discharged with (glaze) or without (slip) treatment to
the Metro Toronto combined sanitary-storm sewer. In addition, large quantities of sludge were
47th Purdue Industrial Waste Conference Proceedings, 1992 Lewis Publishers, Inc., Chelsea, Michigan 48118.
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