One initiative is to recycle solvent from two different waste streams at the Orange plant. The waste will be shipped to a company that will distill, separate and use the materials as an additive for industrial-grade gasoline and diesel. Through this process, the solvent streams become a co-product instead of a waste. The project, scheduled to begin this summer, has the potential to reduce waste by 2 million pounds and would reduce Orange’s Annual Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) by 52 percent.

In 2008, the Polybutadiene Rubber Business unit, which operates out of the Orange facility, converted over 95 percent of its packaging to recyclable metal containers. The conversion to metal packaging has removed wood and cardboard as potential sources of on-site and customer contamination. Additionally, there is no need for packaging disposal.

Over the past five years, the Orange site, in co-operation with a reprocessing agent, successfully diverted approximately four million pounds per year of fine rubber scrap from landfill to incorporate it into solid wheel barrow and grocery cart wheels, filler in plastic lumber and low-grade thermoplastic pellets. Not only was value created from a previous waste stream, but significant landfill costs were avoided and sales revenue was generated.