Case Study
Automated Wastewater Plant Reduces Water
and Chemical Usage for Savings of US$113,000
Challenge
Results
This southern U.S. manufacturer of golf carts and
utility vehicles did not have sufficient capacity to
treat all of the plant’s discharged wastewater. As a
result, operators were required to use day tanks for
hazardous chemicals, monthly environmental testing results sometimes exceeded permit limits, and
too much time was being spent on fixing leaks,
handling chemicals and ordering system repairs.
There was no monitoring of system parameters for
troubleshooting.
Automation has reduced operator hours by 4 hours
per shift and provided a net annual savings in excess of US$50,000 from lower chemical usage.
Eliminating day tanks and the rinsing of more than
800 chemical drums per year for disposal, and reusing more than 100 gallons (379 L) per minute of
wasted water, provided additional water savings of
US$50,000. All environmental test results are now
well below current and future permit limits, with the
average discharge turbidity down from 89 NTUs to
less than 10 NTUs. As a result, the company is receiving an environmental award from the municipal
wastewater plant.
Solution
GE Water & Process Technologies and US Filter
jointly developed a new waste treatment plant that
provided increased capacity, safer working conditions, improved effluent quality and system monitoring. GE also introduced a neat chemical feed
system utilizing bulk tanks, pumps, and automated
feed and control equipment that eliminated the
handling of chemicals and drums. In addition to
commodity chemicals, the products used included
PolyFloc* AE1125 flocculant, a Pacesetter* control
system and a SmartScan* data management workstation.
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