PET reclaimer moves downstream.* When Nadim Bahou headed Envipco's West Coast business of granulating PET bottles through "reverse vending machines" in the early 1990s, he saw there was a shortage of PET grinding capacity in the region. Bahou left Envipco in 1997, a year before it closed its California operation, put a second mortgage on his home, and started his own business to grind industrial PET. He leased a five-acre lot outside Penis, Calif., an industrial town in the desert southeast of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . He bought a 125-hp granulator and ground clean post-industrial scrap bottles into flake to sell to sheet extruders. He was starting small, but he called the company Global P.E.T. because he had big plans. He added a second granulator, then a third and a fourth, then a bale breaker and color sorting equipment to separate green from clear bottles. After 10 years, his company is grinding PET bottles at up to 3500 lb/hr or 25 million lb/yr. In 2003 California announced "challenge grants" totaling $10 million a year to increase post-consumer recycling. In 2004, Global P.E.T. won a grant of $900,000 toward a washing system that would allow Global to process post-consumer flake as well as post-industrial scrap. "There were rumors of other PET reclaimers going into washing, so I wanted to make the move to protect my business," Bahou recalls. As a result, his was the first--and so far, the only--PET washing line washing line n → cuerda de (colgar) la ropa washing line wash n (Brit) → corde f à linge washing line wash (Brit) west of the Mississippi, though others are planned. There are as yet only about a dozen such lines in all of the U.S. and Canada. In addition to the state grant, Global invested $1 million of its own in the new washing system and hired a recycling consultant, Charles Jones Charles, Charlie, or Chuck Jones may refer to:
Environmentally friendly Environmentally friendly, also referred to as nature friendly, is a term used to refer to goods and services considered to inflict minimal harm on the environment.[1] Washing PET flake is normally water-intensive, requiring scalding scalding plunging of pig or poultry carcasses into very hot water to facilitate scraping and dehairing and plucking. Chicken scalding water is 130°F for broilers (larger birds higher) applied for 1 to 2 minutes. Modern pig abattoirs use steam at 144 to 147°F for about 3 minutes. water, caustic soda caustic soda: see sodium hydroxide. caustic soda Sodium hydroxide (NaOH), an inorganic compound. The alkalies called caustic soda and caustic potash (potassium hydroxide) are very important industrial chemicals, with uses in the manufacture of , detergents, and anti-foaming agents. The wasting solution then must be neutralized and filtered before it can be discharged into sewers. Amut's diatomaceous-earth filtration and closed-loop recirculation Noun 1. recirculation - circulation again circulation - the spread or transmission of something (as news or money) to a wider group or area water system reportedly discharges less water than any other commercial system--less than 10 gal/min of clean, neutral-pH water, tested for bacteria and caustic-soda levels. The rest of the water recirculates approximately seven times before it's bled off into one of two big settling tanks for treatment. The system also uses less than 10% as much caustic and chemicals as some competing systems. Bahou is proud of its environmentally friendly quality: "You shouldn't try to clean dirty plastic by messing up a lot of water," he says. The washing tank is a long drum Long drums are a loose category of tubular membranophones, characterized by their extreme length. They are most common in Africa and in Native American traditions. Long drums can be made out of entire tree trunks. Reference
Today Global runs six days a week, 24 hr a day. Bahou's next step is to extrude extrude /ex·trude/ (ek-strldbomacd´) 1. to force out, or to occupy a position distal to that normally occupied. 2. in dentistry, to occupy a position occlusal to that normally occupied. PET sheet. Last year, his elder son Paul, just out of college, wrote a proposal that won a second state grant--this time for $1,950,000. That will allow Global to add an Amut sheet line, due to arrive this month, and to expand and upgrade its grinding and color sorting. Grinding capacity is now only 3500 lb/hr, whereas its washing capacity is 4500 lb/hr. Global will add a Cumberland 150-hp granulator to replace its smallest unit, bringing total grinding capacity up to 6000 lb/hr--enough to stay ahead of the washing line. Global is also adding a larger color-sorting line from NRT NRT Nicotine Replacement Therapy NRT Norm-Referenced Test NRT near real time NRT Non-Real-Time NRT National Response Team NRT Tokyo, Japan - Narita (Airport Code) NRT Net Registered Tonnage (National Recovery Technologies, Nashville, Tenn.) to separate 7500 lb/hr of green from clear bottles, as well as its first flake color-sorting equipment (from Satake USA, Houston). Satake's system has two parts--infrared technology to identify PET and eject other substances like PVC PVC: see polyvinyl chloride. PVC in full polyvinyl chloride Synthetic resin, an organic polymer made by treating vinyl chloride monomers with a peroxide. , wood, or metal, and a second part with cameras to sort clear PET flake from green, amber, or blue. |
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