Solvent Recycling Issues
Solvent recycling or solvent distillation is the preferred technology for recovery and reuse of waste chemicals from varied industrial applications such as paint cleanup, parts cleaning, printing, etc. The recovery of solvent utilizing a solvent recovery system allows the user to drastically reduce the cost of disposal and new purchase of chemicals which are reusable. The recovery useable solvent in a solvent recycling system also minimizes or eliminates the impact of hazardous material from the environment thus providing minimum of impact on human beings in the work site and surrounding areas. The ever increasing cost of oil is having a major impact on the cost of oil derivative products which encompasses almost all solvents. Even the environmentally friendly solvents like Terpenes, which are citrus based, are extremely expensive so their recovery with a solvent recycling system is necessary to reduce the increased cost. The environmental impact on people and companies is important to the creation of a “good neighbor” profile which has major benefit to the community. Many companies consider recycling of their solvent waste streams simply for this reason. In almost all cases the financial recovery of dollars from recycling is the primary consideration in the purchase and use of a solvent recycling system. Many organizations find that the payback on the investment is less than a year making this decision easy to make.
Waste Solvent Recycling
Solvent recycling practices differ for from one industry to another, however the bottom line interest is to recover the majority of reusable chemicals and dispose of as little as possible. For some generators the added interest is to move to a conditionally exempt small quantity status which will allow them to recycle with no EPA paper work involved. This is a solution for only very small volume producers. For the larger generators the interest is to recover as close to 100% of the solvent in the waste stream, thus reducing the repurchase of new product to as small a quantity as possible.
Solvent Recycling System Strategies
The waste hierarchy classifies Solvent Recycling strategies according to their desirability. The term “3Rs” or “Reduce-Reuse-Recycle”, has also been used for the same purpose in waste solvent recovery. The waste solvent recycling hierarchy has taken many forms over the past years, but the basic concept has remained the cornerstone of most solvent recycling strategies. The aim of the waste hierarchy is to extract the maximum practical benefits from the solvent recycling system and to generate the minimum of waste. In addition this is to be done with the greatest efficiency possible while using the least possible human resources. So today’s recycling programs are looking to have the highest possible impact on the organization by eliminating nearly all waste costs with the minimum of human resource cost while saving the maximum amount of dollars on the purchase side of solvent acquisition. Therefore a fully automated and integrated Solvent Recovery System will continuously have a positive cash flow impact on the organizations bottom line.
Solvent Recycling System Solutions are available in our catalog or contact us.