United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Water
(WH-547)
EPA 832-F-93-009
September 1993
&EPA
Centralized Treatment &
Recovery
Case Studies
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PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
On July 1, 1988. one of the first centralized treatment and
recovery facilities (CTRFs) in the country began operation in
Roseville, Minnesota. The CTRF is called U.S. Filter
Recovery Services, Inc. (USFRS), formerly Metro Recovery
Systems (MRS). The CTRF receives, treats, and recycles
inorganic wastes from metal finishing, electroplating, and
printed circuit board manufacturing industries. Much of this
waste is typically discharged as wastewater to POTWs.
USFRS uses several waste recovery and treatment technologies
that minimize sludge output at a significant cost savings relative
to in-house treatment.
USFRS was originally built as a joint venture partnership
by the Metropolitan Recovery Corporation (MRC), a company
comprised of over 20 metal finishing firms, and Lancy
Recovery Inc., a subsidiary of Lancy International, which has
commissioned thousands of industrial waste treatment and
recovery systems all over the world. The $11 million project
was funded primarily by equity contributions from Lancy and
Metropolitan Recovery Corp. as well as a taxable industrial
revenue bond issued by the St. Paul Municipal Bond Fund A
small portion of the project was funded by government grants
and through penalty money .collected by the Metropolitan
Waste Control Commission (MWCC). On July 1,1992, U.S.
Filter Corporation completed its year-long process of acquiring
MRS. Established in 1953, U.S. Filter Corporation designs
and manufactures complete lines of equipment for water
filtration, water treatment, and wastewater treatment for
industrial and municipal customers. With technical and
manufacturing support from other U.S. Filter Corporation
subsidiaries, USFRS intends to introduce new technologies for
metals recovery, effluent polishing, waste treatment, and
hazardous sludge stabilization.
PROGRAM OBJECTIVE
Requirements to remove wastes, especially metals, from
wastewater prior to its release into municipal sewers results in
facilities using in-plant recovery operations. Although
individual in-plant treatment systems are effective, their
operating costs are potentially high due to costs associated with
sludge disposal. Sludge, which typically consists of metals and
other materials from the process, must be disposed ara
hazardous waste. The objectives of a CTRF are to comply
with wastewater pretreatment requirements, lower compliance
costs, and minimize sludge generation and disposal by
recovering and selling metals.
USFRS collects wastewaters from individual firms,
recovers metals, and treats the remaining wastes to meet all
local, state, and federal standards. The principal goal at
USFRS is recovery of heavy metals including zinc, copper,
nickel, cadmium, chromium, and lead. Other wastes being
treated include acids, alkalies, chromates, cyanide solutions,
and metal hydroxide sludges. Industrial organic wastes are
accepted for transfer to other disposal or treatment facilities.
USFRS recovers materials for further use and offers local
industries an alternative to building and operating their own
pretreatment facilities.
PROGRAM ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The key to USFRS's recovery and recycling service is
waste segregation at the source. Segregating wastes at the
source allows USFRS to treat rinsewaters as well as
concentrated wastes while maximizing the opportunity for
recovery. Once wastes from different processes, with different
contaminants, are mixed together, the energy required for
recovery is often greater than the value of the recovered
material itself. A CTRF can help industrial firms identify the
best way to segregate their waste streams to achieve lower
operating costs, acceptable effluent quality, and a high recovery
potential; which, in turn, makes it easier for the POTW to
comply with its discharge permit through more predictable
influent loading rates and less load on the treatment works.
Analyses undertaken during the planning stages, as well
as experience from operations to date, indicate that centralized
treatment and recovery of liquid industrial waste can be cost
effective for most of the area's surface finishing and electronics
manufacturing plants. In the past four years, USFRS has
grown from serving 23 firms to well over 300 and from
operating one shift to operating around-the-clock.
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According to their representatives, USFRS has reduced
the amount of sludge produced to nearly a sixth of what would
result from conventional pretreatment technologies. In a recent
study by MWCC of loadings from USFRS and USFRS's full
service users (i.e., those users for which USFRS supplies ion
exchange canisters, retrieval of spent canisters, and treatment of
batch discharges), USFRS has reduced the total loading of
metals to MWCC's plants by 89 percent from 1987 to 1991,
while total waste loads increased by 10 percent. Major
reductions for individual metals were achieved: zinc (93
percent), cadmium (91 percent), copper (91 percent), chromium
(77 percent), nickel (75 percent), and lead (71 percent). The
facility was one of 14 hazardous waste facilities nationwide to
win the 1991 Environmental Compliance Award granted by
Environmental Information Ltd. for full compliance with EPA
regulations.
With the help of USFRS, MWCC has made great
strides and reduced the amount of metals in their influent by
more than 100,000 Ibs. per year.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To receive an update on USFRS, contact Earl E. Finder
at (612) 633-0079. For information on MWCC's role in
central treatment and recovery contact Jeff Syme at (612) 229-
2109 or write to:
U.S. Filter Recovery Services, Inc.
2430 Rose Place
Roseville, Minnesota 55113
or
Metropolitan Waste Control Commission
Means Park Center, 230 East Fifth St.
St. Paul, Minnesota 55101
? For additional information about the MWPP Program, contact the U.S. EPA Office of Wastewater Enforcement an
I Compliance, (202) 260-5856.
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