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Past Projects
MnTAP has sponsored student interns since
1985. The following companies have participated in our program.
To find projects in your industry or related to a specific
waste problem use MnTAP's Search
feature.
2007 Projects
- Advanced Web, Minneapolis—reduce scrap rate and the volume of waste paper produced.
- Arctic Cat, Thief River Falls—reduce energy use from the paint line, reduce phosphorus discharges in the wastewater and improve compressed air efficiency.
- Boise Cascade, International Falls—improve energy efficiency and conserve water by improving the compressed air system efficiency, improving steam system insulation and reducing water use.
- Cook Area Health Services, in and around Bigfork (40 miles from Grand Rapids)—reduce pharmaceutical waste at its hospitals, medical clinics and nursing home.
- The Dotson Company, Mankato—reduce energy use by reusing process heat from casting iron.
- Greatbatch - Globe Tool, Minneapolis—reduce trichloroethylene (TCE) emissions from vapor degreasers.
- Kraft Foods Global, Inc., New Ulm—reduce water use by reclaiming water for reuse and reduce energy use by installing a condensing boiler-stack economizer and installing a heat recovery system on the ammonia gas compressor system to capture waste heat.
- McLean Thermal - Hoffman Enclosures Inc., Champlin—improve operating efficiencies in the pre-paint/ washer/conversion coating process lines by reducing cleaning chemical use, energy consumption of heated stages, and wastewater discharge.
- Olmsted Medical Center, Rochester—reduce hazards associated with chemicals and reduce number of chemicals used for cleaning and disinfecting.
2006 Projects
- Alexandria Finishing, Alexandria—reduce wastewater and wastewater treatment chemicals in the facility.
- Federal Cartridge, Anoka—reduce wastewater.
- Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis—reduce pharmaceutical waste.
- Metropolitan Council Environmental Services, St. Paul, wastewater treatment—improve the energy efficiency of its secondary treatment aeration system.
- QX Inc., a die caster in Hamel—reduce energy use in the melt furnace operation and recover heat from the evaporator system.
- Tennant Company, Golden Valley—reduce water and chemical use in painting pretreatment and improve energy efficiency.
- Tri-County Hospital, Wadena—reduce pharmaceutical waste.
Previous Projects
- Aaron Carlson Company: Assembled
a list of waterbased lacquer suppliers and established criteria
for judging the quality of finish to compare lacquers. Project
summary
- Advance Circuits: Water
conservation at a printed circuit board manufacturer. Project summary
- Alexandria Finishing: Reduced wastewater and wastewater treatment chemicals in the facility.
- Allina Hospitals and Clinics, Abbott Northwestern Hospital: Minimized toxic product use in maintenance and environmental services.
- American Converters: Eliminated
31,580 pounds of air emissions and 8,100 pounds of hazardous
waste for methylene chloride using alternatives to adhesive
joining in a plastics job shop. Project
summary
- Anagram International:
Saved over $68,600 annually through reducing solvent and
ink purchases and waste in the flexographic printing industry.
Project summary
- Astoria Industries: Source reduction
and recycling opportunities for a fiberglass reinforced
plastics shop. Project
summary
- Aveda Corporation: Evaluated ways
to reduce water use and evaluate efficiency of the reverse
osmosis system from manufacture of personal care products.
- Bemidji State University: Decreased
lab waste by nearly 35 percent and reduced reagent use by
33 liters per year. Project
summary
- Blandin Paper Company: Increased
the efficiency of the clay preparation area by recovering
material for reuse and removing material from the wastewater
at a paper mill.
- Bouquet Enterprises: Found substitutes
for selenium-based acid in decorative product manufacture.
Project summary
- Crenlo: Project 1. How
to reduce solvent emissions in painting operations. Project summary Project 2.
Reduced paint arrestor waste and evaluated opportunities
to conserve water and chemicals at this fabricator of sheet
metal products, including cabs for agricultural and construction
industries. Project summary
- A Dairy in Minnesota: Decreased
water use by fine tuning the computer programming that ran
its clean-in-place (CIP) systems which sanitize equipment.
Saved over 8.5 million gallons of water and over $20,000
annually. Decreased biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) loading
by 2.5 percent, saving an additional $6,000 per year. Project
summary
- Dairyland Equipment Services:
Use of mercury manometers in the dairy industry. The MnTAP
intern's research lead to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's
mercury manometer replacement project. Project
summary
- Diamond Brands: Reduced
wood waste and energy use used for heating wood blocks when
manufacturing wood products. Project
summary
- Endocardial Solutions, Inc.: Project
1. Reduced 1.4 tons of solid waste per year, the payback
is less than a year with first year savings of about $15,000.
Project summary
Project 2. Reduced costs associated with the use of non-value
added materials in the manufacture of medical devices. Project summary
- Federal Cartridge: Reduced wastewater.
- Fiberglas Fabricators: Evaluated trim scrap and overspray. Project summary
- Fisher-Rosemount: Identified
and segregated contaminated materials to reduce hazardous
waste. Project summary
- Foldcraft: Evaluated
how to reduce volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous
air pollutants (HAPs) from painting during furniture manufacturing.
- General Mills: Reduced water and
sewer costs by $5,400 a year and a one time SAC by $22,000
through repairs and modifying process equipment. Project
summary
- Greif: Reduced scrap by reviewing
scrap-generating processes in the tubing department, including
density of plain paper rolls, setup procedures and cutting
operations at this manufacturer of multi-walled bags.
- Hennepin County Medical Center: Reduced pharmaceutical waste.
- Hibbing Taconite Company: Reduced ore spills by making equipment and maintenance changes, saving $260,000 annually. Project summary
- Hoffman Engineering: Saved
$32,000 annually by reducing water use in painting pretreatment.
Project summary
- Hood Flexible Packaging: Reduced
waste from flexographic printing at a polyethylene bag manufacturer.
Project summary
- Hutchinson Technology, Inc.: Tested
ways to reduce water use and improve rinse water cleanliness
at a computer suspension assembly manufacturer.
- Intermet: Examined water use and
wastewater, focusing on water use at the tumblers at this
diecaster of aluminum parts. Evaluated electricity use,
mainly on the compressors, motors and natural gas to the
evaporator.
- Jostens: Evaluated the
efficiency of acid use and identify options for reclaiming
process acid.
- K-Bar Industries, Inc.: Improved
inspection of reject parts before stripping, increasing
operator awareness and process changes save K-Bar $44,000
annually. And an upgraded paint system reduced reject parts
by 50 percent. Project
summary
- Kurt Manufacturing Company:
Water conservation at a metal fabricator.
- Lifecore Biomedical: Removed unnecessary
equipment and repairing water valves reduced water use by
3.86 million gallons a year, saving $69,000 a year plus
an anticipated $157,000 in one-time SAC fees. Project
summary
- Lou-Rich Inc.: Reduced water used in cleaning and cooling operations use by 8.9 million gallons per year, saving $42,100 annually. Project summary
- Malt-O-Meal: Evaluated options
to decrease the volume of off-specification product produces
at ready-to-eat breakfast cereal company.
- Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC:
Saved $39,000 through cleaning changes. Eliminated almost
all chlorinated aerosol spray use. Purchased parts washers
with fine filtration to replace four rental washers. Found
alternatives to a terpene-based, large surface-spray cleaner
and improved cleaning effectiveness. Project
summary
- Marigold Foods: Evaluated reducing
phosphorus discharge and biochemical oxygen demand at a
fluid dairy.
- Medallion Kitchens: Reclaimed
11.5 gallons of sealer overspray daily, saving $23,000 per
year. And, reduced waste sludge 50 percent, saving $30,000
annually. Project
summary
- Metropolitan Council Environmental Services: The wastewater treatment improved the energy efficiency of its secondary treatment aeration system.
- Minnesota Department of Agriculture:
Reduced use of methylene chloride in environmental analysis
work at an analytical lab. Project summary
- Minnesota Department of Natural
Resources: Researched waste reduction in a vehicle
maintenance facility. Project summary
- Nico Products: Water
conservation in electroplating.
- NordicWare: Reduced energy used for makeup air units in the painting areas and improved heating efficiency during nonmanufacturing hours.
- North Star Finishing: Water
conservation in electroplating.
- Park Nicollet Health Services
(formerly HealthSystem Minnesota): Eliminated mercury-containing
devices in its one hospital and 25 clinics. Project
story
- Pro-Corn LLC: Evaluated energy
conservation opportunities for motors and uninsulated piping
at this ethanol production facility.
- QX Inc.: Evaluated how to reduce energy use in the melt furnace operation and recover heat from the evaporator system.
- Redwood Area Hospital: Researched
how to reduce volume of solid waste and waste that results
in the emission of persistent bioaccumulative toxins (PBTs).
- Rock-Tenn Company: Paper mill insulates steam and condensate lines to save $170,000 by reducing energy losses. Project summary
- Rosemount Aerospace:
Aqueous alternatives for cleaning measurement instrumentation.
Project summary
- Schmidt Printing: Lithographic printer reduces paper waste. Project story
- SCS Co-Sines: Zinc alloy
die cast scrap reuse. Project
summary
- Sellner Manufacturing: Evaluated
reducing laminate and gel coat overspray in fiber reinforced
plastic process.
- Smith System Manufacturing: Researched
reducing wastewater and chemical use at a manufacturer of
metal office and school furniture.
- Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar
Cooperative: Reduced the use of lime in processing
beets into sugar. Project
summary
- Sparta Foods: Saved
nearly $10,000 through water conservation; water use and
wastewater loading in the food processing industry. Project
summary
- Stone Products of St. Cloud Inc.: Automated the gel-coat spray operation to reduce waste, toxic air emissions and worker exposure, while improving quality.
- Stora Enso Duluth Paper Mill (formerly
Lake Superior Paper Industries): Reduced wastewater solids
at a paper mill. Project
story
- Stylmark Inc.: Reduced an anodizing line's nitric acid use and nitrate discharge.
- Tandem Products: Reduced
waste in polyurethane manufacturing operations. Project
summary
- Technical Plating: Improved flow
control on one plating line and effluent reuse reduced water
demand by 2,625,000 gallons per year, saving $7,100 a year
plus $44,100 in one-time SAC fees. Project
summary
- Tennant Company: Project
1. Reduced
solid waste from packaging at a floor maintenance equipment
manufacturer. Project story Project
2. Reduced water and chemical use in painting pretreatment and improve energy efficiency.
- Thomas Engineering Company: Replaced trichloroethylene degreasing with a combination of n-Propyl Bromide and aqueous degreasing.
- Tiro Industries: Reduced water
and wastewater to reduce a Service Availability Charge (SAC)
at a producer of consumer products, including hair and skin
care.
- Tri-County Hospital: Reduced pharmaceutical waste.
- Ultra Image: Evaluated how to
reduce raw material use in the powder coating application
process. Project summary.
- University of Minnesota Small Animal
Hospital: Reduced the use of disinfectants while maintaining
strict disease control. Project
summary
- University Technology Center:
How to reduce waste in a multitentant commercial building.
Project summary
- U.S. Distilled Products: Reduced packaging and product losses, and wastewater generation from the production lines. Project summary
- Viking Industries: How
to reduce VOCs and improve transfer efficiency in the wood
finishing furniture process.
- Vision Ease: Research
eliminating trichloroethylene, a chlorinated solvent, from
multifocal lens production.
- Wenger Corporation: Decreased
the use of powder coating paint in manufacturing music equipment.
Project summary
- X-Cel Optical: Eliminated
trichloroethylene, a chlorinated solvent, from multifocal
lens production. Project
summary
- Zytec Corporation: Source
recovery of isopropyl alcohol at an electronic equipment
manufacturer. Project summary
This is not a complete list of companies
who have participated in the intern program.
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General Information
2008 Summer Projects
Businesses Apply
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Past Projects
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