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Kohler Aims for Cleaner Bodies and a Cleaner Environment
For more than a century, Kohler Co. has been working to keep Americans clean by producing sinks, bathtubs, and other plumbing products. Kohler has also been working to keep its environment clean by reducing their environmental footprint through reuse and recycling of their manufacturing waste. In addition to recycling tons of office paper, cardboard, and scrap metal each year, Kohler has successfully found ways to recycle the sand and pottery cull (scrap plumbing material) leftover from its manufacturing processes. This year, Kohler found a use for 80,000 tons of foundry sand, slag (dirty glass) and pottery cull.
Foundry sand and pottery cull are common byproducts from the manufacturing process for sinks and tubs. Kohler, like other foundries, purchases new, virgin sand to make casting molds for their sinks and tubs. The sand is reused numerous times, but when heat and mechanical abrasion eventually render the sand unsuitable for use in casting molds, the spent foundry sand is removed, and is either recycled or landfilled.
Kohler recycles more than 50 percent of the nonhazardous spent sand generated at its foundry in Kohler, Wisconsin—a significant achievement given that nationwide less than an industry estimate of 15 percent of the 6 - 10 million tons of spent foundry sand generated annually is recycled.
Kohler now supplies foundry sand to state road projects, including one of the largest road reconstructions in Wisconsin, as well as building construction projects for large companies. Contractors and architects use the sand as structural fill beneath foundations and building slabs as an alternative to virgin crushed rock. Recasting this former waste as a commodity has been key to Kohler’s recycling success, though the biggest economic advantage has been the extended life of Kohler’s main landfill, initially projected to close in 2001!
According to Kohler representative, Nathan Nissen, the decision to identify new uses for its spent sand instead of building a new landfill made sense from both environmental and cost-savings perspectives. “Finding new ways to use materials has many benefits,” he says, “including saving money, conserving natural resources, avoiding environmental damage, and [meeting] the challenge of proving that recycled materials are as good as virgin materials.”
Kohler’s innovative foundry sand and pottery cull recycling program exemplifies the types of initiatives encouraged by our Resource Conservation Challenge within the national priority area of Industrial Materials Recycling.