Auto Body: GLRPPR Sector Resources

News: EPA OKs Recycling Plastics from Shredder Residue

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:27:55 GMT

Facilities are now allowed to recycle plastics separated from automobile shredder residue, according to the EPA's new interpretation of existing regulations.

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Resource: BLOOM Client Case Studies

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 14:10:54 GMT

Categorized by industry sector. Every two-page case study includes a summary of the pollution prevention assessment process and findings, and a table of pollution prevention solutions, environmental benefits and related cost savings.

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News: Energy Department Announces New Investments in Innovative Manufacturing Technologies

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 20:06:20 GMT

As part of the Obama Administration's blueprint for an American economy built to last, the Energy Department has announced new investments that support American leadership and global competiveness in manufacturing. The Energy Department awarded more than $54 million--leveraging approximately an additional $17 million in cost share from the private sector--for 13 projects across the country to advance transformational technologies and materials that can help American manufacturers dramatically increase the energy efficiency of their operations and reduce costs. These projects will develop cutting-edge manufacturing tools, techniques, and processes that will be able to save companies money by reducing the energy needed to power their facilities. These projects are a part of the Administration's strategy for investing in emerging technologies that create high-quality domestic manufacturing jobs and enhance the competitiveness of U.S. companies in today's global markets.

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News: Honda Debuts Rare Earth Recycling for Cars

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:58:46 GMT

A wide variety of products -- including consumer electronics, solar panels and more -- use rare earth minerals, which are pricey and can be environmentally damaging to mine. This article discusses a process, developed by Honda and Japan Metals & Chemicals, that claims to be the first mass-production process for recycling those minerals. It's applying the process to hybrid-vehicle batteries and scrap metal from cars, but if the process is successful, it could potentially have implications for other industries.

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News: Honda Leads, Mitsubishi Trails in Toxic Interior Rankings

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:17:11 GMT

The Honda Civic tops the Ecology Center's rankings of cars with the least toxic interiors, thanks to the company's efforts to reduce PVC, while the Mitsubishi Outlander Sport comes last.

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News: Old Electric Car Batteries to Find Second Life on the Power Grid

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:18:21 GMT

Electric car batteries have up to 70% capacity remaining after 10 years of use. This allows them to be used beyond the lifetime of the vehicle for applications, and smart grids can take advantage of their capacity to store intermittent renewable energy.

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Training: Air Quality Training

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:54:05 GMT

Six training sessions dealing with a wide variety of air quality topics.

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Resource: Toxics Use Reduction Case Studies

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:55:28 GMT

Case studies from a wide variety of industries and processes.

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News: Agilyx Turns Plastics Back into Crude Oil

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:33:45 GMT

When Lew Feucht sees a bag of potato chips, he doesn't see the salty snack inside the bag. He sees black gold, Texas tea, pure crude oil. Feucht is an account manager for Agilyx, a start-up company that is turning waste plastic into crude oil to be sold to a refinery. Agilyx has designed a system to take shredded plastic, heat it to the point that it becomes a liquid, and then gasify it. The gas is brought back to a liquid in a condenser and turned into a mixture of water and crude oil. The process can take a 1,000-pound batch of plastic and turn it into crude oil in five hours. The system is efficient, he said; it makes five BTUs worth of energy for every one BTU of energy used to process the material. The company's small industrial facility in Tigard, Ore., can process 10 tons of waste plastic a day. A tanker picks up 9,000 to 10,000 gallons of crude oil every seven to 10 days. While the system can take all types of plastics, Feucht said the company likes to avoid polyethylene terephthalate (PET or plastic code one) and high density polyethylene (HDPE or plastic code two) in favor of plastic codes three through seven, which are harder to recycle. There are all different types of streams that work in the system, including leftover plastic from car shredding, commonly referred to as auto fluff. The leftover plastic from electronic waste can be run through the system as well.

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News: Survey: Recycle old car batteries in U.S.

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:59:34 GMT

About 83% of those surveyed said it is the responsibility of the service center replacing a car battery to recycle it, according to SLAB Watchdog, which had Harris Interactive conduct a survey about car batteries and electronic waste. A survey of 2,050 American adults revealed that of those who purchased a new car battery in the last three years, 80% left it at the service center, 13% dropped it off at a municipal recycling center and 1% threw the old battery in the trash.The respondents said recycling car batteries were a higher priority than other e-waste by a three-to-one margin, SLAB reported.

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