Valley Design: Reusing Contaminated Raw Materials
Gophers Don’t Care If It’s Maroon or Gold
Valley Design, a powder coating job shop in Fountain, Minnesota, reclaims waste powder coating for reuse. It’s common in the industry to reclaim uncontaminated powder that misses the parts being coated. But, Valley Design is reusing contaminated powder—powder that becomes mixed with one or many other colors after spraying.
When Valley Designs thinks that one of their customers cares primarily about the durability of their coating and not so much about the color, they ask the customer if they’d like to save money on their coating job. If a customer is willing to use the mixed-color powder on their parts, they are not charged for the cost of the coating.
“We coat gopher traps for a local manufacturer,” said Al Strange, systems supervisor for Valley Design. “The coating needs to be durable and the gophers don’t care what color the traps are. We don’t charge the customer for the powder which saves them money.” And, Valley Design saves money through reduced landfill costs.
If you have a product being powder coated, ask yourself how important is the color of your product. If it’s not a main criteria, ask your powder coater to reuse mixed-color or “sprayed to waste” powder on your parts.