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NPEP Success Story: Federal Mogul: Powertrain Systems
Federal-Mogul: Powertrain Systems Reduces Lead and Changes Regulatory Status
The Federal-Mogul facility in Blacksburg, Virginia, has been manufacturing engine and crankshaft bearings since 1971. In 2007, manufacturing operations from a plant in Michigan were relocated to the Blacksburg facility, increasing its production capabilities to include engine bushings and washers. The present location encompasses 250,000 square feet and employs about 360 people, making it one of the largest employers in the New River Valley. The engine bearings, bushings, and washers are produced from metal alloy strip containing various metals and are pressed and formed into products to support the three largest domestic automotive manufacturers: Ford, GM, and Chrysler.
Federal-Mogul's NPEP Goal
We set an NPEP goal in 2005 to eliminate the use of lead in our production processes (127,400 pounds) by the end of 2006.
NPEP Project Implementation
To accomplish our goals, we discontinued our lead, tin, and copper electroplating operations in 2005 and decommissioned the area to remove all lead contaminated equipment and materials. We also switched to the use of new aluminum alloys containing lower lead compositions that were approved by our customers. Our casting operation now remelts lead alloy scrap to reduce the overall quantity of lead purchased and lead materials sent off-site as D008 hazardous waste. We track purchases of lead and lead alloy to document reductions in lead use and we track hazardous waste shipments to document
the generation of lead-based D008 waste.
Despite the recent addition of bushings and washers processes requiring lead, we added a third aluminum strip casting line and we sought customer approvals to use reformulated aluminum alloys. In addition, we can now separate non-hazardous refractory waste from lead contaminated waste due to improved waste material segregation efforts from our casting operations.
Waste Minimization Results
Federal-Mogul in Blacksburg achieved an 80% reduction in lead usage (106,821 pounds) but fell short of our goal to eliminate lead by the end of 2006. Lead compound usage in 2006 was 20,678 pounds and was primarily the result of increased production demand for products requiring lead-based alloys that year because the bushings and washers operations require the use of lead alloy materials.
The segregation effort to minimize the quantity of D008 hazardous waste will allow our facility to generate much lower quantities of hazardous waste. Analytical results from material segregation efforts show that most of the waste generated from our castings operations is non-hazardous and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has granted approval to change our regulatory status to Small Quantity Generator.
Lessons Learned
Because of increased production and customer requirements mandating the use of specific alloys, we were not able to achieve our original goal. We learned that goals need to be flexible because we can not predict future activity or organizational changes that can affect the assumptions made in the original commitment. Our success has given us confidence that we can pursue additional reductions, although we may not be able to become a lead-free operation.