A project that enables Corning to use less water and save energy is receiving recognition.
Corning’s Project Clean Water, initiated at the Hickory Manufacturing and Technology Center in North Carolina, was recently named a top project by peer companies who are also members of ENERGY STAR. Corning was one of nine companies with new projects that save natural resources recognized at the Environmental Protection Agency’s annual industrial partners meeting in Washington, D.C.
Project Clean Water recycles the water used in manufacturing and greatly reduces the amount of water discharged from the Hickory plant to the local municipality’s treatment facility.
To do this, members of Hickory’s Global Energy Management team installed an ion exchange water treatment system that removes contaminates from the process water, while an ultraviolet lamp controls any biological growth. The water is then filtered and returned in a closed-loop design to be used for manufacturing multiple times.
So far, the green-solution at the Hickory plant has:
- Reduced annual water usage by 11%
- Improved the production line efficiency, previously dedicated to cleaning and maintaining the water system
“It was great to be able to take what Corning has learned about reducing water usage with new technologies and share it with other ENERGY STAR industrial partners,” said JT Hufnagel, operations manager, Global Energy Management. “Project Clean Water has helped reduce our natural resource usage, save us money, and allow our employees to spend more time on manufacturing products.”
The technology behind Project Clean Water has been installed at additional Corning manufacturing facilities.
