Hazardous Waste > Governor's Award > 1992 Winners

Governor's Award for Pollution Prevention and Sustainable Practices

1992 Winners

K D Autobody, Inc. Puyallup

• Auto body repair, painting, and restoration; employs 16.
• Substituted grey-based sealers with less lead and chromium for yellow-based sealers that have more of the heavy metals.
• Saving nearly $1,000 per year by reusing paint thinner.

Boeing Defense and Space Group, Seattle

• Builds military airplanes and aerospace vehicles; employs approximately 20,900.
• Developed Hazardous Materials Management Program to provide a coordinated, unified approach for ‘cradle to grave’ management of hazardous materials and to reduce their use.
• Reduced annual generation of hazardous waste by 205,000 gallons through a segregation and deionization system.
• High transfer efficiency system for painting reduced the amount of paint used by 16,000 gallons and also reduced emissions of volatile organic compounds.

Naval Submarine Base, Bangor

• Support and maintain submarines; employ 10,000.
• Reduced hazardous waste disposal by 1,208 tons per year, only 80% of the 1987 base year volume.

Leathercare, Seattle

• Wholesale fabric, leather, and fur cleaning and storage; services 900 drycleaners in state; employs 35.
• Installed two carbon adsorbers to reduce perchloroethylene emissions.
• Installed new distillation and cleaning systems that eliminated 1.5 tons of hazardous waste per year, including 1,200 to 1,500 gallons of perchloroethylene in still bottoms and crushed cartridges. Saving $5,000 per year in disposal costs.
• Replaced all standard lights with energy efficient lamps and electronic ballasts in 1990. Installed insulation blankets around water heaters and replaced heater thermostats. Saved $4,000 so far on total capital costs of $15,000.
• Encourage retail customers to return plastic bags and hangers for reuse or recycling.
• Employees no longer have to change filter cartridges or clean out stills, which they considered “the worst job in the world.” Eliminated solvent odors from those operations.

Natural Blue, Inc., Ferndale

• Grower and processor of blueberries; employs 8.
• Primarily organic; uses no chemical fertilizers, insecticides or soil fumigants.
• Innovative systems and equipment for weeding, watering and harvesting conserve fuel and water.
• Uses pulp or cardboard containers instead of plastic.
• Processing waste feeds pigs. Dairy manure provides fertilizer. Land clearing debris is composted.

Nelson Irrigation Corporation, Walla Walla

• Designes and makes agricultural irrigation products; employs 140.
• Switched from Trichloroethylene to less toxic 1,1,1-  -Trichloroethane. No longer generates solid or hazardous waste and does not emit toxic vapors.

Elf Atochem North America, Inc., Tacoma

• Chlor/alkali and inorganic chemical production facility; employs 125 people.
• Employees adopted the Mashel River, in Pierce County; conduct regular stream monitoring and water quality surveys, and built a water quality monitoring station.
• Started plant-wide solid waste recycling program that employees can use for household wastes.
• Replaced halogenated solvents with a biodegradable citrus base solvent.
• Persuaded chromium catalyst supplier to switch from paper bags to reusable drums.
• Invested $1.7 million in a more effective waste water treatment system; as a result the wastewater has been within permitted acid/alkali levels since 1989.
• Reduced hazardous air emissions by approximately 90% over the past four years, due to more efficient scrubbing, increased training, improved monitoring devices, and other measures. Also switched to membrane cells and eliminated use of asbesto-containing diaphragm cells.
• Reduced volume of solid waste by 82% since 1990.

Pierce County Transit, Tacoma

• Provided more than 10.5 million passenger trips in 1991, plus 363,000 trips on the door-to-door service for people with disabilities.
• Using compressed natural gas instead of diesel on 35 buses. This comparatively clean-burning fuel does not emit particulate matter or soot, reduces smog-causing hydrocarbons by 80%, and carbon monoxide and airborne toxin emissions up to 90%. Also has lower cost per mile to operate in most cases.
• Has received national awards for creative technology and clean air efforts.