On a household level, the amount of water we consume is staggering. In the United States, estimates range from 80 to 100 gallons (302 to 378 liters) per person every day for indoor purposes such as showering and laundry. Canada is second behind the U.S. on a per capita basis, consuming about 329 liters, or 87 gallons, day in and day out. And while many of us are changing our mindset about the environment and conserving water through means such as low-flush toilets and low-flow showerheads and faucets, we still use over twice the amount of water as Europeans.

More than ‘just water’
Tasteless, colourless and odourless, water is essential to all life – and industry – on Earth. While we are aware of drinkable waters like tap, sparkling, spring, purified, distilled, glacier and well water, uses for water vary depending on industry, and contamination varies a great deal.

Although it is of referred to simply as ‘wastewater’ once used, its composition can be complex and varied. Grey water – previously clean, drinkable water we use to wash our bodies, dishes and clothes that’s disappeared down showers, kitchen drains and laundry tubs – contains some bacteria and low levels of contaminants, but can be processed and re-used for watering lawns and other purposes. In parts of the world prone to drought, like Australia, grey water is recycled to flush toilets, significantly reducing household water consumption.

Not all water can be safely re-purposed, such as black water. Sometimes called brown water, black water is water contaminated from human waste and flushing toilets. Containing high amounts of bacteria and pathogens, it requires chemical treatment and strict adherence to environmental regulations before it can be re-introduced into the environment.

Water use by sector
Every industry on Earth uses water for everything from growing crops to wide-scale manufacturing and processing, with some sectors being more dependent on water than others. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) – which has gathered and analyzed water use data for over 70 years – the United States and territories use 322 billion gallons of water per day (Bgal/day). The biggest water consumer is farming, followed by thermoelectric power and public supply at 133 Bgal/day and 39 Bgal/day.

In resource sector industries like mining and oil and gas, water is a necessity. In mining, mineral extraction is just one of many uses for water. Other purposes include dampening roads to suppress dust, processing, and filling massive tailings dams with water and mining waste like chemicals and rock particles. Among the biggest man-made structures on earth, some of the estimated 3,500 tailings dams are the size of natural lakes.

The very large amount of water used by the resources sector – and the fact that water in tailings dams contains sulfuric acid, lead, mercury, dissolved iron and a myriad of other contaminants – means it requires extensive treatment before it can be released into rivers, lakes, and streams. And in the oil and gas sector, it is not unusual for millions of gallons of water, mixed with fracking fluids, to be used for just one well. In mining, water management is essential to ensure water used for purposes such as mineral processing is properly treated, reused, and recycled before it is re-introduced back into the environment.

While many of us in North America are keenly aware of the need to protect and preserve our streams, lakes, and oceans, the same awareness is not universal. This was the subject of a World Bank blog post written soon after the 8^th World Water Forum, staged in Brazil and organized through the World Water Council (WWC) in 2018. Held every three years, the purpose of the Forum is “to promote awareness, build political commitment and trigger action on critical water issues at all levels,” according to The World Bank, and “to facilitate the efficient conservation, protection, development, planning, management and use of water in all its dimensions on an environmentally sustainable basis for the benefit of all life on Earth.”

Titled Wastewater treatment: A critical component of a circular economy, author Diego Juan Rodriguez’s post addressed the irony of holding a Forum on water in a city of three million persons itself wrestling with an urgent water shortage. Upon arriving at his hotel, Rodriguez found a government notice making guests aware of the water situation, and suggested ways to conserve.

The circular economy of water
While traditional water management methods have their benefits, some believe the current systems are not sustainable in the long run. The tragic reality is, much of the planet’s wastewater is not collected; according to World Bank Group estimates, this is as high as 80 percent. “Wastewater is a valuable resource, but it is often seen as a burden to be disposed of,” states the organization, which works toward sustainable solutions to reduce poverty. “This perception needs to change.”

Indeed, our collective attitude toward reducing and preserving the water we use needs an adjustment. Cleaning and repurposing water benefits the environment, and transitioning from the traditional linear model to a circular one brings many benefits – including waste in water being removed and repurposed as fuel or fertilizer. For the energy, industrial and mining sectors, treated water is used to cool power plants, in the production of paper and textiles, and as process water for mines. Other purposes include water for recreational use, irrigation, and human consumption.

Processing used water through anaerobic digesters – sealed vessels using bacteria to break down manure, food waste, crop residue and other organic materials – results in biogas and “digestate,” solid and liquid sludge also called biosolids. Composed of various gases including highly flammable methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, biogas has many uses, including generating electricity, heating and cooling systems, and even as an alternative to traditional gasoline for vehicles.

Since they are composed of organic materials, digestates/biosolids are full of macro- and micro-nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Depending on processing and treatment, these materials are no longer waste to be dumped or incinerated, but become the foundation of bioplastics, bedding for animals, or organic fertilizer for plants and crops.

Another benefit of anaerobic digestion is economic. Since they are generating renewable energy, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) can apply for carbon credits. According to the World Bank Group, “Improved wastewater management¬ offers a double value proposition if, in addition to the environmental and health benefits of wastewater treatment, financial returns are also possible. Resource recovery from these facilities in the form of energy, nutrients, reusable water, and biosolids represent an economic and financial benefit that contributes to the sustainability of these systems and of the water utilities operating them.”

Fortunately, the issue of how we can best manage our water resources is meeting with growing awareness. For the momentum to continue, we need to view “wastewater” as water – not something used once and dumped back into waterways, but as something to be treated and repurposed. While many of us in the west take water for granted, the fact is we are running out of clean water, and can ill afford to mistreat lakes and oceans. If Microsoft magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife can fund through their Foundation the Janicki Omni Processor (J-OP) – a revolutionary waste treatment system that not only transforms feces-infested water into drinkable water while generating electricity and heat – anything on Earth is possible.

The post Rethinking Water<p class="company">Wise Wastewater Management</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“We have grown to be far more than just a bottled water company, and we wanted our name to reflect that. Ice River Sustainable Solutions represents where the brand is today and its ongoing efforts to protect the environment for generations to come,” says Crystal Howe, the company’s Sustainability Manager. Using innovative resources and methods to retain plastic material within the value chain, IRSS has managed to keep over 450 million pounds of plastic out of landfills since 2009.

A more recent development for the company is its move from partial ownership to full ownership of C.R. Plastic Products. This branch of the company transforms recycled plastic caps and other recycled materials into quality, eco-friendly, outdoor furniture. IRSS experienced further growth with the introduction of BMP Extrusion, a partnership with Greenlid that provides a line of compostable products, the opening of the Shelburne water plant, the acquisition of Urban Polymers in Toronto, and an expansion of its recycled polyethylene terephthalate (RPET) production capacity.

The new Blue Mountain Plastics Extrusion (BMPE) plant has a modern film extrusion and printing facility. It produces thin, strong, engineered coalition shrink film that allows Ice River Sustainable Solutions to use less plastic wrap for its bottled water. “Due to its thin gauge and high strength, it reduces the plastic required to pack heavy products. With water being so heavy, it drastically reduces the amount of plastic film we need to use,” explains Howe. BMP Extrusion also has a state-of-the-art printer capable of printing eight colours with in-house ink-mixing and precision automated mounting.

Using BMP Extrusion’s advanced equipment, the Ice River Sustainable Solutions team has been focused on incorporating recycled material into its plastic film which is a new innovation for this type of blown film. Starting with post-industrial recycled material (PIR), they have achieved twenty percent recycled content, and they expect that number to increase over time.

With the Shelburne Water Plant, IRSS now has the entire operation—water plant, film plant, and recycling plant—all in one location. “Shelburne now takes us through the closed-loop cycle from film, RPET, and water production in one place. The water plant is state-of-the-art with a turnkey Krones [bottling] line and an Elettric80 Forklift and warehousing system,” describes Howe.

The company is eager to bring people in for tours when possible again after pausing the visits temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic. The tours are interesting and engaging because visitors can watch their material go from the Blue Box right through to a finished product, which will hopefully lead to an increase in recycling and create greater trust in the larger recycling system.

Ice River Sustainable Solutions is committed to closed-loop recycling to eliminate waste through the reuse of materials. The company purchases PET, Type 1 post consumer bales from local material recovery facilities, and although some of the material in the bales is not perfectly usable PET for beverage containers, IRSS is continuously innovating to find a use for it all. The cap material is sent to C.R. Plastic Products to be turned into high-quality furniture. The company uses all of the green PET material from the Blue Box in its own Ice River Green Bottle Co. brand which keeps an additional 5 million pounds of plastic out of landfills every year.

“It is an exciting time to be part of the circular economy in Canada. With eleven years under our belt, we are excited to see more companies join in,” says Howe. “We are completely committed to producing only the most environmentally-aware products and packaging.”

The impact of COVID-19 put a great deal of stress on supply chains across the globe, but Ice River Sustainable Solutions was more fortunate than most. As a result of its vertical integration and local feedstock of PET for recycling, the company was well prepared for such an event. It did not have any supply chain interruptions since its PET bale supply is from local curbside collected material. Because of this, when the demand for bottled water increased at the beginning of the pandemic, IRSS was not only able to meet customer needs but was able to support the community with water donations and RPET bottles for hand sanitizer. Ice River employees are incredibly passionate and although COVID-19 was challenging for essential workers, they worked hard to ensure that bottled water was available to all who needed it.

The area of challenge is the misinformation and negativity surrounding plastics. “We feel that we represent the positive side of plastics. We want people to see what can happen when plastics are used responsibly. Plastic has a lot of good qualities but need to remain in the value chain and not in the environment,” says Howe.

Stakeholders in the plastics industry now recognize that keeping plastics in the value chain is essential, from a financial perspective as well as for environmental reasons. PET plastic is easily recyclable over and over again. The industry does not want it to end up in landfill.

The best way to stimulate change quickly is for industry groups, government, and environmental organizations to work together to find common ground. Ice River Sustainable Solutions is excited to be a part of that change as manufacturing, in general, moves towards cyclical models.

IRSS has been producing 100 percent recycled bottles since 2010. “The beverage industry is working hard to increase recycled content in their containers. The recycling industry is always finding new ways to recycle packaging, and brand owners know consumers want more sustainable products and packaging,” says Howe. Having worked to become a trusted voice for the recycling industry, IRSS is proud of the relationships it has formed with the government, customers, and suppliers.

Ice River Sustainable Solutions has earned its reputation as an environmentally-friendly bottled water company that has grown into a leader in continuous improvement of the plastics recycling industry. “I think, over the last few years, to be recognized as a company that can help and be a solution to the plastics problem has probably been our greatest success,” says Howe. With Co-Owners Jamie and Sandy Gott as the creative minds at the helm of the company, there are lots of new developments on the horizon. “We’ve developed an excellent team at IRSS, with a passion and dedication to the environment, and it’s very exciting.”

The post A Trusted Voice in the Canadian Recycling Industry<p class="company">Ice River Sustainable Solutions</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“We use the term de-manufacturing because our facilities are run like manufacturing environments. We believe in lean principles; we use Six Sigma,” says CEO Steve Bush of the company’s procedures for process improvement, “and they are typically indoor facilities. We’re really trying to get as much of the material out of these appliances and into some sort of reuse as we can. Our goal is that ninety-five percent of the weight of the appliances goes back into some sort of recycling stream versus being put into a landfill.”

The unique aspect of Recleim’s operations is the way in which it handles polyurethane foam. If an appliance was manufactured prior to 1995, it is likely that chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) refrigerant was used as the blowing agent to insert the foam throughout the cabinet and get it to quickly expand to create the layer of insulation. CFC refrigerants have since been banned because they are greenhouse gases that damage the ozone layer when released into the environment.

Although there are recycling regulations in the United States that require the extraction of harmful fluid refrigerants from the cooling circuits of appliances and HVAC, there are no federal laws to enforce the same rules when it comes to the refrigerants trapped inside the foam. Another problem is that within the industry, it is less understood that the same CFC refrigerant is trapped inside the bubbles of the foam.

“If you were to take a regular refrigerator and take it to a recycler and they just shred it, they can release up to two pounds of CFC gas trapped inside the bubbles of the foam,” Bush says, but Recleim has an innovative solution to this problem. “We agitate the foam inside our shredding process and extract all of that gas, and then, in most of our plants, we take the gases trapped inside the foam and use a catalytic process to actually destroy the CFC refrigerant at 99.99 percent efficiency, which meets Montreal protocol.” This international treaty was agreed upon in 1987 and laid out a plan to phase out substances that deplete the ozone layer.

Recleim also provides a service to investor-owned utilities around the country that have energy-efficiency programs designed to encourage replacing old energy-inefficient appliances. Recleim acts as an agent call center to arrange meetings with the utility companies’ customers to remove their old refrigerators after upgrading to newer models.

After initially evaluating an investment opportunity to start a recycling business in Canada, the two entrepreneurs who founded the company quickly shifted their attention toward the United States where the recycling industry was more fragmented. The year was 2012, and many appliances at the time were disposed of by small recycling shops or scrapyards, and regulations were not as clear as they are today.

“In general, recycling and scrap had this seedy connotation, cash exchanging hands over a tailgate, and whatever happens after that nobody knows. What we wanted to do was provide a company that would have contracts, insurance, and indemnification and have much more of a corporate feel,” says Bush.

As the founders were both from small towns, they ambitiously focused on distressed areas that could benefit from an efficient recycling operation. “We decided that once we were going to launch this recycling company, we needed to locate it in a place that would provide not only a benefit to the environment but also benefit from a social perspective to the place we agreed to locate,” explains Bush.

Graniteville, South Carolina was the company’s first home. The small mill town was already experiencing a collapse in its economy after a freight train derailed and caused one of the worst chemical spills in U.S. history. The town lost thousands of its jobs and had nearly been abandoned before Recleim worked to restore the community. Since expanding the company into various states outside of South Carolina, it has maintained its vision to uplift communities along with the environment. Without exception, it chooses to locate in distressed areas and focus on hiring local people.

Recleim has twelve locations in the U.S., primarily east of Mississippi, and plans to expand further west in the next couple of years, beginning with Dallas. Three of these sites are de-manufacturing facilities, and the other nine are logistics hubs used to manage collected appliances. For the last three years, the company has been named in the annual rankings of Inc. Magazine’s five hundred fastest-growing privately-held companies in the U.S., peaking at 101 on the list.

A recent challenge is that the commodity markets are under pressure due to tariffs and the global uncertainty driven by the trade war between the U.S. and China. The company has seen the price of steel and other materials generated from appliances drop significantly in the last year and a half. However, the main day-to-day hurdle is to raise awareness about the two pounds of CFC gas trapped inside the foam of older refrigerators and to educate people about the environmental damage of sending these appliances to a landfill.

Even if the rest of the appliance is recycled, it is important to properly dispose of the foam to prevent ozone-depleting gases from being released into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, there is currently no law in the U.S. preventing people from discarding appliances in landfills, and this is still a relatively common occurrence.

In Europe, recyclers are more advanced than in the U.S. since there is limited land mass. The founders of Recleim travelled to Europe before establishing the company to learn about efficient recycling, and they brought these innovative ideas and European technologies back to the U.S. “The biggest differentiator in our recycling process is how we handle those gases. We either capture the gas directly in the recycling process or we use liquid nitrogen to take that blowing agent and convert it into a liquid so that it can be captured and sent to one of our destruction facilities.”

By using manufacturing techniques in reverse to de-manufacture appliances, Recleim can separate, capture, and recycle more of each unit than a typical recycling operation. “We have multiple kinds of sorting technologies on the backside of our recycling lines so that we’re able to separate copper and aluminum and plastic into sellable commodities. We really strive to increase the purity level of our commodity outputs because we believe the purer the recycled commodity we can get, the better we’ll be paid for it.”

As Recleim expands throughout the U.S., it remains dedicated to its founding values of pursuing locations in economically distressed areas. It bases these important decisions on census tract and Opportunity Zone data. To empower and uplift the community, it hires employees locally to help with job demographics in the area. It is also committed to supporting local veterans in a variety of ways.

In the future, it plans to continue looking for new ways to improve its efficiency. This includes finding buyers for materials captured by the company’s de-manufacturing process that are not currently going into a recycle stream. For instance, Recleim is investing in research for waste to energy (WtE) opportunities that can utilize the processed foam. WtE would allow it to generate energy from its collected waste that cannot be recycled otherwise, instead of having to dispose of it into a landfill.

In addition to its goals of ongoing improvement, the company is actively educating the industry and the general population on how appliances should be properly recycled to ensure we are protecting the environment.

“The most important message is that appliances, especially refrigerators and freezers and any appliance that contains foam, have to be handled in an appropriate way, and that means you have to capture to gases that are trapped inside the bubbles of the foam, they should not be taken to a landfill or sent to a scrapyard that isn’t capable of capturing those gases,” Bush explains emphatically.

According to Project Drawdown, an organization of global scientists studying climate change and potential solutions, the leading way to mitigate climate change today is refrigerant management. Hopefully, Recleim’s method of recycling and its important message will continue to spread throughout the nation.

The post Making an Impact<p class="company">Recleim</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The history of the company reaches back to Lower Saxony, Germany in the early years of the First World War. At the time, Carl Kaefer was making his living by selling peat moss and had found a fair amount of success in that venture. After a few years of learning about and working with peat, he realized that he could sell it as an insulation medium for industrial ships. By the end of the war, he decided it was time to go into business for himself, and in 1918 he did just that.

In the 1940s, the company had expanded from insulating ships to insulating industrial plants, and its propensity to grow has continued ever since. Today, after more than one hundred years in business, KAEFER is world-renowned as an innovator in the field of insulation.

KAEFER Canada specializes in industrial and commercial insulation with a focus on thermal and acoustic insulation, which is designed to limit the transfer of both heat and sound. Recently, the company has been working to expand the capabilities of its Canadian branch to include additional services such as scaffolding, painting, coating, and fireproofing. Outside of Canada, these services are already central to the company, so the expertise and experience are already developed.

“Our customers benefit from our reliability, experience, quality, global presence, and aggregated technology on a combined multiservice solution. That’s what we bring to the market in Canada. We hear the same from all of our sites, that we always bring more value to our customers in terms of tech and innovation,” says Chief Executive Officer Rafael Machado. He is a relatively new addition to the KAEFER Canada team, having come on board in September of 2020 after fourteen years working in several countries with the KAEFER group.

The company is made up of a small but efficient group of fifty specialists who work across more than ten sites, including a head office in St. Albert where it has a small prefabrication shop. It invests heavily in technology and has a competent team of expert engineers. A team of senior estimators and senior multidisciplinary project managers can manage both insulation and scaffolding. There are also business development experts, controllers, administrative staff, and a health, safety, environment, and quality (HSEQ) team.

KAEFER provides its services to a diverse collection of competitive markets. To distinguish itself, the company has invested a great deal of time and money into refining the overall effectiveness of its operation using lean site management methodology and digitization initiatives.

“We are investing hard in lean management and digitization to improve our management capacity and bring value to our customers. During COVID, this has become more and more important, because with people working from home, you need ways to inspect your site and know what’s going on even when you can’t be there. We’ve invested in digital solutions to manage the job remotely. KAEFER is in the vanguard of that,” says Machado. The company has been on what it calls its ‘lean journey’ for more than eight years, and it is now on a digital transformation journey as well.

KAEFER aims to be much more than a service provider. On any job site, the company’s goal is to build a deep knowledge of the specific needs of the project. This ensures that the team can apply their experience and expertise toward helping the customer meet intended targets. Once its team of specialists understands a client’s exact needs, they can engage not only the local team but also the company’s global personnel resources toward finding the perfect solution to the given problem.

As an ISO-compliant company, KAEFER operates with the highest quality standards. As a result, it has built a strong and solid reputation across all sectors in all the countries it operates within.

Over the last two years, the company has made some substantial changes to how it is approaching the Canadian market. First, management made the strategic decision to concentrate its operations in Western Canada, closing all of its branches on the Atlantic side to focus on providing its services to customers in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan. Currently, the company is expanding investment into multiple services beyond insulation into scaffolding, painting, coating, and fireproofing.

Further, the company is making the necessary preparations to provide support to the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market in Canada. KAEFER has a solid background in the LNG field, with a long list of successful projects throughout Europe, Australia, Asia, and the United States. An Australian organization under the KAEFER umbrella specializes in LNG projects and is being called on to impart its expertise to its Canadian counterparts in this sector.

This new LNG focus may enable the company to expand into Kitimat, British Columbia. “Expansion into Kitimat is a natural path as we are looking to support the LNG business in the region. We want to expand and support other clients in that region as well. We expect, depending on the volume of business, we might even be opening a new branch there,” says Machado.

With a long history of working on LNG projects throughout the world, KAEFER can apply its international resources toward building a leading Canadian LNG solution. That level of expertise sets it apart from any other company in that sector in Canada.

LNG plants are made up of many modular components, and typically those components are built in other countries and then shipped to North America where they are first insulated and then installed. KAEFER has developed a system where all the pipes can be pre-insulated and installed in the module at the manufacturing plant so that, when it arrives in Canada, the receiving team can focus solely on installation.

This maximizes more than just the speed and efficiency of this process. Since the product is constructed in a controlled shop environment, there is much less risk of water ingress and moisture-related damage. This greatly improves the quality of the insulation and the component, and it is a major differentiator for the company, as it is a technology exclusive to KAEFER.

Several issues arise when equipment is not properly insulated, or when it corrodes underneath the insulation. Pipes and equipment surfaces can get hot enough to cause burns if a worker gets too close or comes in contact with it, plus you lose your process integrity and you pollute the environment.

KAEFER offers an energy auditing service that enables customers to recognize how they can increase the sustainability of their operation, advance safety in their facilities, and reduce their carbon footprint. An energy audit is between 80 and 100 pages, and the company has performed more than 200 of them worldwide. Often plant operators are surprised to find out how great the energy and CO₂ saving potentials are and how short the payback time is (usually less than two years).

During an energy audit, KAEFER thermographers will visit a client’s site to take thermographic pictures and measurements. KAEFER will assess the facility and provide a report with actionable advice on how to properly insulate their equipment. It includes not only the exact amounts and types of insulation they require but also an estimation of how much it will cost and how quickly it will pay off.

One of the most critical issues around insulation is a phenomenon called Corrosion Under Insulation (CUI). Due to the insulation itself and the cladding around it, you often cannot see when a pipe is corroding underneath. KAEFER offers a CUI health check service. During the check, the company will assess a number of key aspects of a business that have a direct correlation to the monitoring and handling, as well as perform risk mitigation of this problem. In order to give advice for improvement, KAEFER will analyze the customer’s internal processes, how technically competent their organization is, and how the company handles data when it finds anomalies.

“You try to find out why it’s happening, why it’s happening so often, why it’s happening in this area rather than another, and what do you do to prevent it in the future? So, we compare the inherent risks you have with the capabilities of your organization,” says Thomas-Peter Wilk, KAEFER Chief Technical Officer and Head of Corporate Innovation and Technical Excellence from the KAEFER Group headquartered in Germany. This assessment will help a company know how best to detect and handle CUI.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on KAEFER Canada. The company is closely tied to the oil and gas industry, as a significant portion of its customers are either in or are connected to that space. In 2020, many of its projects were postponed or cancelled entirely and earnings dropped significantly. Luckily, 2021 has shown more promise with an increase of nearly thirty percent compared to 2019 but still far from the levels it was at before the pandemic.

As the market grows more competitive, companies will need to seek novel, technology-driven solutions to increase efficiency and reduce costs, and KAEFER’s commitment to providing competitive, high-quality industrial services continues to push it to the front of Canadian industries.

The post Innovative, Technology-Driven Solutions in the Field of Industrial Services<p class="company">KAEFER Canada Inc.</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

When COVID hit, “We just hunkered down, and worked harder than ever,” states President, Chief Executive Officer, and Owner Steve Hightower. “We’ve continued to be able to operate during this period successfully.”

In fact, the firm is looking to expand its reach. Hightowers is currently exploring a venture involving electric vehicle (EV) charging stations while building its “upstream trading platform for crude oil and LNG [liquid natural gas],” Steve notes.

The company continues to work with clients in the automotive, education, sports, construction, manufacturing, retail, utilities, and government sectors, providing bulk fuel delivery for commercial vehicle fleets, fleet cards, inventory management, supply chain management, and emergency fuel supply. Of these services, bulk fuel delivery remains the biggest revenue generator. The company has “a couple hundred customers and 175 carriers,” in the bulk fuel segment, he says.

“Our role is to identify and purchase the product, depending on where it’s at in the country. Then we have carriers that we call on as subcontractors to pick up our fuel and deliver it to customers on our behalf,” he explains.

The automotive sector is one of the main recipients of these bulk fuel deliveries. HPC provides the fuel that goes into brand-new cars produced at plants run by the likes of General Motors, Honda, and Nissan. “Every vehicle that comes off of their assembly lines is filled with ‘x’ gallons of gas. The number of cars is a huge volume,” he says.

If automotive is “considered one of our most robust markets, the utility marketplace is also very robust for us as well. When you’re looking at how power is generated, many times it requires diesel,” he adds.

While bulk fuel delivery “is our principal line of business, the fleet card which at one time was a loss-leader has become a star in our tool-kit,” Steve says. This business-to-business offering can be used to purchase products and services at thousands of truck stops and gas stations across the United States.

Steve refers to the card as “the most robust discount network” of its kind in the marketplace, and says the card now has its own app which can be used “to direct customers to where the discount networks exist.”

Like most businesses, COVID hit Hightowers hard. When the virus emerged, the company deployed its technological resources so staff could work remotely. Eventually, it was decided to bring management staff back to HPC headquarters. Health protocols were imposed, and the work schedule was tweaked so employees came in on alternate weeks to avoid overcrowding.

Employees are now required “to wear a mask at all times when you’re outside of your station or your office, or if someone enters your space in your office, the two of you must have a mask. We made an investment into KN95 [masks], so everyone that enters our facility must wear a mask,” Steve says. “Additionally, we have recently purchased air purifiers and test kits.”

While keeping staff safe was the company’s main concern, Hightowers also had to readjust some of its business priorities.

“We were delivering crude oil prior to the pandemic. Crude really took a hit, and everything was backed up, so supply was very plentiful, and a lot of people went to their base suppliers. We were relatively new to the marketplace, so we lost a lot of business in that timeframe,” Steve says.

The COVID crisis had international ramifications for HPC. The company is a licensed motor fuel dealer in South Africa, but work fell off drastically when the pandemic struck. The company also had negotiations with China and Abu Dhabi which were affected.

“We are still licensed in South Africa. However, as you may know, South Africa remains challenged and is shut down, more so than we are today. They were completely shut down. So, there’s not a lot of activity in South Africa right now,” he states.

HPC also has offices in Cincinnati, Baltimore, Michigan, and Washington, DC.

Ironically, the virus drastically reduced marketing expenses at HPC. In pre-COVID days, the firm regularly attended trade shows and industry events, most of which have now moved online. “All the conferences and all the flying we would normally do to meet customers and be part of conferences and conventions, those costs were totally eliminated in 2020,” Steve states.

While the company “likes to shake hands and talk face-to-face,” staff quickly adapted to conducting meetings on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other online platforms, he continues.

Hightowers remains one of three principal companies with which Steve is involved, the other two being HP Energy and the Hi-Mark Construction Group. Total employment across these enterprises stands at roughly seventy people (although that figure varies due to fluctuations in the construction market).

“HP Energy has begun to get its stride going. They’re engaged with a lot of energy-related projects, including consulting to implement microgrids for a public zoo. Our engineering and expertise is driving the project,” he says.

He is excited about a new venture that involves all three companies under his purview. “We are now looking at supplying EV charging stations for electric vehicles. We have negotiated distributorships for that technology. With our construction team, we are in a position where we’re able to install on a national basis.”

If all goes to plan, HP Energy would work on the energy part of the deal; Hi-Mark Construction would handle installations.

The company’s interest in green power reflects both environmental concern and business sustainability. “As a company, we’re very environmentally-conscious. While we have a product that we are not ashamed of and are proud to be able to offer, we also know that there are ways we can reduce emissions with various additives and alternative [fuels],” Steve says.

These alternative fuels include biodiesel and ethanol, both of which are derived from plant material. While immersed in the oil and gasoline trade, Hightower readily acknowledges the rise of renewable energy. Gas and oil will still be around for decades, but the company is already preparing for when renewables start edging out fossil fuels.

“Do I think gasoline and diesel is going to go away in the next ten years? If they stop making combustible engines today, it will take fifty-five years to clear [gas and diesel from] our system,” he notes. “We’re looking from a standpoint of not being a dinosaur. We know the [renewable energy] market is coming and want to be in front of it.”

The Hightowers Company has ISO 9001:2015 certification for quality management and ISO 14001:2015 certification for environmental management. Working to ISO standards while following a philosophy of continuous quality improvement is core to HPC’s mission.

The company’s high standards have earned HPC numerous awards. The firm was declared Deloitte USA Top 100 Companies’ #25 in 2020, and 2019’s Minority-Owned Business of the Year by the Dayton Business Journal newspaper. Hightowers had been a finalist for this title for several years running. Previous accolades include the 2019 General Motors Supplier of the Year Award and the 2018 Duke Energy Supplier Excellence Award (Diverse Supplier of the Year).

Steve remains personally involved with a plethora of organizations. He recently finished terms on the board of directors for both the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce and the National Park Foundation (NPF).

He is also a current Board member of the National Petroleum Council (NPC), Rainbow PUSH, Cincinnati Business Committee, NMSDC National Minority Supplier Development Council and the Society and Independent Gasoline Marketers Association (SIGMA), among many others. He was appointed to NPC Council by President Barack Obama and re-confirmed by former President Trump.

Steve proudly notes that Hightowers is “going into our fourth generation as a family business. We have two granddaughters working in the business, which was started by my father and mother and carried forward by myself.”

His parents, Yudell and Elsie Hightower, established a thriving company called Hightowers Janitorial Service in 1957. Yudell evidently passed on his business smarts and drive to his son, who launched Hi-Mark Construction in 1979. Two years later, Steve purchased his parents’ janitorial business. He eventually sold the firm and founded Hightowers Petroleum Company after winning a petroleum contract from the state of Ohio.

Stephen Hightower II – Steve’s son and Yudell’s grandson – currently works as the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Other family members also occupy key roles across the three firms Steve operates.

Going forward, he would like to keep Hightowers a family-owned firm but is open to expansion in whatever form that takes.

“We’re looking into the future as to what expansion looks like, relative to funding. We have opened ourselves to options of strategic alliances and partners, to be able to get to the scale we would ultimately like to be at. It’s admirable that we have a national reach and that we’re delivering into Mexico and Canada, but in order to go beyond [that] we still probably need some additional capital resources,” Steve states.

The post Family-Run Firm Deals with COVID and Builds Its Business<p class="company">Hightowers Petroleum Company</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Company owner Randy Brown started the business in 2011 together with Director Cody Wallis after Brown had spent years working as an auto body apprentice and spending his free time painting cars in his garage.

Upon entering the industrial space, Brown remembers how his first job involved managing 400 BBL fluid storage tanks in a Quonset hut on a farm outside of Red Deer, a far cry from where he dreamed of being in the industry.

After apprenticing under Carmon Brown at “Pro Paints” in Terrace, British Columbia, Randy asked for permission to use the name Pro Paint for his own business endeavour in the sector. “I always loved it and dreamed of my own company with that name,” Randy says.

Over the ensuing decade, Pro Paint made its mark in the industrial sector and the broader coatings market, with sales increasing 50 percent since 2018 thanks to continued work contracts and a sterling reputation particularly in the construction, maintenance, and resurfacing markets.

The company prides itself on its diverse range of services, its ability to apply coatings to anything a customer may desire, and its adherence to the strictest quality standards on every job.

Sales Manager Dan Zinger, who has been involved with the company since 2018, says that the company’s identity in the marketplace is that of an outfit that continuously and diligently works on itself to ensure that its customers are offered the most competitive bang for their buck.

Zinger believes that the biggest driver for Pro Paint’s success is exceeding customer expectations, which in turn leads to repeat work. “We spend a lot of time and resources,” Zinger adds, “getting that first ‘foot in the door’ opportunity. When we get that first opportunity, we want to perform in a manner that compels the customer to, in turn, give us the next job as well.”

Randy Brown himself is of Wet’suwet’en and Tsimshian descent and is both a registered member of the Witset First Nation and a part of the Laksilyuclan (Small Frog) Clan, giving Pro Paint the distinction of being an Indigenous-owned company, one that Brown, and the entire company, are proud of. Pro Paint’s identity is multifaceted, and since its inception it has been ably managing all aspects to great success.

Pro Paint is entering its first decade as an established company this year and has seen many notable accomplishments and projects in its time. Speaking of these significant business milestones, both Zinger and Brown remember the opportunity the business had working as a subcontractor for the Nova R3 Expansion for construction and building contractor The Ledcor Group in 2015.

The expansion, a major project by plastics and chemical corporation NOVA Chemicals, was both a huge undertaking (involving the management of 50 workers) and a milestone of success for Pro Paint as the project came in on time and on budget for Ledcor and NOVA Chem, adding to Pro Paint’s resume and reputation.

A similar milestone was reached recently as the company was awarded the coatings contract for underground piping on a substantial LNG (liquefied natural gas) project near Kitimat, British Columbia. This is a $40 billion dollar project that represents a considerable accomplishment for both Pro Paint and its Indigenous partner, Kisumkalum Economic Development Group.

Brown adds that, five years ago, Pro Paint set out to get into large-diameter tank coating, strategically adding people and company assets before internally coating its first tank in 2014, which in turn led to opportunities on dozens of tanks and a much-enhanced resume.

Each of these experiences has not only increased business success but led to the acquisition of valuable learning experiences and improved company skills.

Both Brown and Zinger are quick to extol the good work that the Pro Paint workforce does every day for successes like these. The workers, according to Zinger, value a positive environment where a good attitude is more important than skills. The company has adopted an open-door policy for its workers where truthful and respectful communication is valued at all levels.

Zinger adds that the group operates on a growth mindset with the accepted belief that those with the right attitudes will succeed. So those who are a good fit for the company are empowered, helped, and directed toward opportunities where their talents can flourish. “We know how to work,” Brown summarizes, adding that employees will work all hours to ensure clients get exactly what they ask for. Although, he adds, they still manage to keep things light and have a good time.

Pro Paint’s ongoing successes saw an unfortunate stall in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But thanks to the strengths of its pre-existing structure, the company was able to avoid laying off any key employees. To preserve the positive working environment that it has carefully cultivated over the past decade it continues to search out creative ways to reduce costs without cutting people.

The pandemic also created a greater need for safe practices in companies of all kinds, a focus that was already at the forefront of Pro Paint’s efforts. Zinger says that the company develops procedures and policies daily that are proactively creating a safety culture in the workplace, with daily morning-meetings for reviews and discussions.

Beyond the effects of COVID-19, Zinger observes that the industry has shrunk within the past few years, with less investment by many companies and so, fewer capital projects underway. Maintenance is a service that will always be necessary on some level, so opportunities still exist for the company and others like it but, with less activity occurring overall, Zinger says that the competition has gotten intense.

Brown adds that the company is “eternally optimistic about the future,” with lots of visible opportunities for continued expansion of its service offerings and clientele base. Considering the future in the light of the shake-ups of the past year, the company acknowledges that circumstances will be different but its size and flexibility will see to it that it remains a setter of the pace within its sector.

Pro Paint is focused on growth above all else as 2021 takes shape, daily revealing new challenges facing both the company itself as an individual business and the industry overall.

Balancing and spending will be kept on a tight leash as new areas are explored and as the company plans to double its current capacity to better serve client needs.

Respect will also continue to be paid to the company’s Indigenous status in both how it identifies itself within the marketplace and the partnerships that Pro Paint will embark on.

“We’re a coast-to-coast Canadian company,” Brown says. ‘I’m proud that we’ve been able to partner with other Indigenous communities. These partnerships have allowed us to engage those communities in a win-win relationship and for both of us to share in mutual benefits.”

Pro Paint continues to innovate in its processes and so remain at the absolute cutting edge and forefront of its industry. Although only a decade old, it already has so much to offer any potential client in need of painting solutions.

The post Proud Twice Over – Of Its Indigenous Roots and National Growth<p class="company">Pro Paint</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“We’ve got five different sites, where we’re powering the city’s water supply, powering the pumps that are getting water out to homes and businesses,” Chief Executive Officer Scott Gromer said at the height of the Texas power outage in mid-February.

Its portable generators, which can run on natural gas or propane, were transported from company-run service centers to small communities in South Texas and northern Oklahoma. Unlike power generation equipment in Texas, which was not properly winterized, Mesa generators work well in all kinds of weather.

“We build our generators to deploy anywhere in the world, from very cold operations in Northern Canada and Alaska to very hot operations in the Middle Eastern desert,” said Gromer.

Mesa’s work in Texas underscores its mission to provide a reliable, efficient, environmentally-friendly source of electrical generation to clients. Its parent company is Dallas-based BP Energy Partners, a spin-off of hedge fund BP Capital Management. The firm was named after Mesa Petroleum, an earlier fuel company owned by BP Capital founder T. Boone Pickens.

It offers two main product lines: stationary PowerCore units and portable natural gas generators. While plenty of companies also sell gas and propane-fuelled generators, Mesa stands out for several reasons. For a start, its equipment is designed to be especially long-lasting and low-maintenance.

“We focus on building and servicing products that are meant to run for long periods of time. We don’t build a stand-by generator that would go in your house,” stated Gromer. “We do not build products that are meant to run a few hours a year or a few days a year when there’s a power outage.”

The company’s generators “have the capacity to run twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week” for “years and years without any downtime or any significant maintenance,” he noted proudly.

Launched in early 2014, the company has a head office and research and development facility in Loveland, as well as a manufacturing plant in Wyoming and a nationwide network of service centers.

Mesa has a presence “throughout the central U.S., from North Dakota to South Texas, from nearly the Canadian border to the Mexican border. That’s our U.S. operations. We also work with other dealers in the power generation space, so if we go outside one of our service areas, we will engage one of our service partners to operate and maintain the generators if they’re outside of our coverage area,” explained Gromer.

The company offers thousands of generators that can be leased and “deployed when and where they are needed for our customers. They stay on locations from days to years. On the sales side, we manufacture and sell generators to different customers around the world,” he continued.

The generators are designed to be weather-proof. All generators, whether portable or stationary, are protected by a custom-built enclosure that features a series of louvers. The louvers open and close automatically, depending on outside air temperature. When it is hot, the louvers open to let in cool breezes. When cold, the louvers close, protecting the machines from frost and freezing.

Mesa does its own design and manufacturing. It purchases engines and a few other components from outside suppliers but assembles everything in-house and uses proprietary software and controllers.

All generators are fitted with telematics technology so performance data can be monitored remotely. The company trains clients so they can maintain and operate the telematics systems on their own but its technicians can also monitor equipment performance at an operations data center at company headquarters.

Mesa’s stationary power generators are sometimes linked together in microgrids for extra power or reliability. Whether bunched in a microgrid or installed as a single unit, the stationary generators are typically used by factories, warehouses, and data centers that either need more energy or lack a connection to a utility. The company’s stationary generators are also utilized by some electrical substations as a backup in case of a power disruption in the transmission lines.

Its portable generators are popular with mining firms, oil and gas facilities, construction companies, and other commercial/industrial businesses that need electricity but are outside the reach of a power utility.

‘Flare mitigation’ is another company specialty. In petroleum extraction and other industrial operations, excess gas is often burned or ‘flared’ off. Flare gas, as it is called, can be used to produce electricity which, in turn, can power worksites or communities or be channeled back into the energy grid. Mesa is currently involved in a major flare mitigation project in Nigeria.

“There are areas of that country that are starved for power. They get electricity in their remote villages for a few hours a month. Yet, they’re flaring a lot of gas. So, we’re working on a project there with a local partner to turn that flare gas into electricity to provide to remote villages and communities,” stated Gromer.

This is not Mesa’s only international venture. It has worked in South America, the Middle East and the Philippines, where its propane generators provide electricity on isolated islands. In October 2020, the company announced a pilot project agreement with an Australian firm called Bluestone Power. Under the terms of the deal, Mesa will supply Bluestone with natural gas power generators and design and engineering services.

Gromer is pleased with Mesa’s role in the burgeoning green economy. The company’s generators, which use clean-burning natural gas, are becoming increasingly popular as backup support at solar and wind power facilities.

“Unfortunately, the sun doesn’t shine twenty-four hours a day, and the wind doesn’t blow twenty-four hours a day. So, there is a gap in coverage for current renewable sources of power generation. Natural gas is the cleanest burning carbon fuel that’s on the market right now, and it’s readily available and is relatively low cost compared to other fuels. It works very, very well for that base load or providing power in times when solar and wind just can’t,” he explained.

“Our vision is to continue towards greener technology. We want to help our customers produce electricity economically, reliably, and with the lowest possible carbon footprint. I don’t think the world will be zero carbon in five years, but we want to be there to reduce the amount of carbon and be as green a company as possible without sacrificing reliability and resiliency.”

Military veterans also play a special role at Mesa, and Gromer himself served in the United States Army and Army National Guard for over two decades.

“When we started the company, I brought some friends I had served with. There were seven of us that were the core group of the business. Out of the seven, four of us were people who had served in the military together with,” he recalled.

Mesa likes to help veterans who are transitioning to civilian life by offering them good jobs at a growing firm. Its commitment to service members was recognized by the federal government in November 2020, when it received a HIRE Vets Medallion Award which honors companies that hire and retain veterans. At a ceremony hosted by the U.S. Department of Labor, Mesa was one of 675 to receive the award that year.

Total employee numbers now stand at roughly 300, up from 250 this time last year. This impressive growth is even more remarkable given that 2020 was the year COVID hit.

“We implemented plans to keep our workers as safe as possible so they could still perform their jobs because, ultimately, we still had to provide electricity for our customers. We are a critical company and did not have to shut down. We still kept operations going and were able to do that safely, without sacrificing quality and productivity,” stated Gromer.

Mesa Solutions also had to adapt to the abrupt halt to in-person trade shows, meetings, and conferences. In response to such developments, it enhanced its social media presence and moved client meetings and promotional efforts online.

“A lot of our business [used to be] face to face meetings and education with customers. That has significantly changed,” he said. “Zoom, GoToMeetings, Microsoft Teams, you name it, I think we’re experts on all of them now.”

Gromer wants to see the company continue to expand while retaining its core values which center on reliability, responsibility, and fair dealing. As he pointed out, maintaining a consistent flow of electricity has become more important than ever.

“I think what COVID did was open everyone’s eyes, much like the power problems in Texas are opening people’s eyes to different vulnerabilities in the world,” he noted.

The shocking vulnerability of power generating systems, in Texas and elsewhere, has made Mesa more determined than ever to “provide reliable electricity to our customers, anytime, anywhere,” continued Gromer.

The post Celebrating Green Power, Reliable Electricity and Military Veterans<p class="company">Mesa Natural Gas Solutions</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

In developed countries like the United States, average municipal waste is over 200 million tons annually, according to the EPA. Globally, 33 percent of the world’s waste is managed in an environmentally unsafe manner.

Landfills and incinerators, two of the more widely used methods of waste disposal and management, come with both short and long-term health risks created by the noxious gases that emanate from them and intermingle with the air to create methane, carbon dioxide, and other gases that can be hazardous to health.

This is in tandem with problems created by the spatial demands of landfills, as they encroach more and more on any space available to accommodate the huge waste generated by human activity, and by the methane-powered energy consumption of incinerators adding to the total atmospheric pollution.

The situation would seem to call for a truly radical solution, sooner rather than later.

The end of waste
Zero waste is a philosophy for waste prevention that specifically focuses on reusing waste as opposed to simply disposing of it; this way, waste is ideally not sent to landfills, incinerators, or dumped in the ocean but is instead repurposed continually.

The Zero Waste International Alliance, a group of professionals that comprises the largest global component of the movement, has put forward a considered definition of zero waste: “The conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of all products, packaging and materials without [methods] that threaten the environment or human health.”

The germinating understanding and adoption of the ideology itself came about thanks in large part to the Zero Waste Industrial Alliance, which was formed around 2002-2003 as a response to calls from within and without the waste industry for the ending of waste incineration as a management method.

Over several years, officials within the Alliance met to continue and extend the dialogue about management of and technologies related to zero waste. The Alliance is recognized today as a global front-runner of the movement, serving to educate countries and their governments on the environmental benefits of adopting a zero-waste lifestyle.

The circular economy
Although the zero waste movement began to pick up momentum in the new millennium, its operating framework, referred to as “cradle-to-cradle” (C2C), had already begun to form with initiatives as far back as the 1980s.

William McDonough and Michael Braungart, an architect and a chemist respectively, are recognized as the innovators of the modern interpretation of C2C thanks to their book, “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things,” which introduced the concept as a “design framework for going beyond sustainability and designing for abundance in a circular economy,” as it is phrased on the website.

The cradle-to-cradle prescription that motivates the zero waste movement actively opposes the more familiar cradle-to-grave model, a comparatively linear system of usage intended to decrease waste and which is already in place worldwide in waste management – and seeks to replace it.

In fact, “Cradle-to-cradle” is the very converse of the older system – employing cyclical means to eliminate waste altogether through the act of repurposing; creating a closed-loop system that does not beget further by-products.

There are two additional cycles within the C2C model that apply to how zero waste products are reused: biological, which involves products biodegrading into the earth after usage; and technological, where metals, plastics, and chemicals made with zero waste in mind can be reused continuously (or discontinued, in the case of non-biodegradable plastics and other such non-renewable resources).

This approach may seem like that of recycling, but the key difference cited between the two methods is that while recycling only deals with the end of a product’s lifespan within the current linear waste-management system, zero waste exists as more of an ideal that looks to leave no waste created by a product whatsoever.

As Joan Marc Simon for Zero Waste Europe explains, recycling can only do so much in bringing the planet closer to sustainability whereas zero waste can provide a revolutionary take on waste management. “The approach might be new but what we are doing in fact is to go back to some traditional usages; designing things to last (from fashion as well as from product point of view), easy to be repaired or refurbished, with non-toxic materials, easy to dismantle or tear apart, traceable, recyclable, et cetera.”

The prospects for zero waste
Nevertheless, although zero waste is an approach that is highly regarded among those who evangelize it, it is not without its drawbacks.

Zero waste is seen as a rather expensive alternative to current waste management techniques, as it involves the usage of certain approved products that can be used again and again to fit the concept’s cyclical nature.

As the awareness and demand for a zero-waste approach increase worldwide, more online marketplaces are established for zero waste products in areas such as hygiene, cooking, cleaning, and others; however, the products that are deemed zero waste-appropriate are often harder to find than their waste-creating counterparts. They can be more expensive due to their inherent cyclical nature, which narrows the barrier to entry for a lot of people.

The entire ideology is one that is felt to be hard to achieve on the larger scale that its proponents are seeking, as not all products in the world have viable alternatives that could fit into the system – and non-biodegradable resources are set to remain more readily available.

According to Maurice Skinner for Zenbird, the large-scale adoption of zero waste is a daunting challenge: “It is necessary for individuals to become aware of how much garbage is generated and what they can do about it. This also includes rallying businesses, cities, and countries to create and protect implemented policies that will help make our world a better place to live.”

The idea is one that is seen to be limiting to those who adopt it in that it requires an intimidating amount of discipline. Much like many other sustainable changes that also involve changing one’s lifestyle, it is not an easy one to begin nor maintain.

Zero waste management is a radical re-thinking of the current waste management cycles we exist in and, although actionable in some ways, would take serious, concerted intention of adoption by governments the world over to truly become the new norm.

However, organizations like the ZWIA continue to propagate the idea, with more countries finding their own place within the system; as of this writing, there are more than 60 ongoing initiatives spanning all continents. Thanks to coverage of the ideology across so much of the globe, individuals in many different countries continue to adopt zero waste to reduce their own waste and contribute to the push for sustainability.

A few of these people have dedicated books and blogs to helping others adopt the lifestyle and, in rare instances, entire townships (like the Japanese town of Kamikatsu) have adopted a zero-waste principle among their citizenship to counteract the continued global misuse of non-sustainable energy.

Zero waste, like a lot of greener alternatives to living in the modern day, is one that requires a serious commitment at both a macro and micro level. Whether or not it will be able to make any significant changes to the planet’s current resource-intensive and less sustainable methods of waste management is unknown but, as more people try to make their lives more environmentally sustainable, it is one choice that hopes to leave a lasting impact.

The post Zero Waste<p class="company">A Growing Alternative to Resource-Heavy Waste Solutions</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.