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EPA Recognizes Baldwin Hardware for Its Commitment to Reducing Waste

Release Date: 12/12/2003
Contact Information: Bonnie Smith, 215-814-5543

Bonnie Smith, 215-814-5543

READING, Pa. – In a ceremony in Reading, Pa. today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Donald S. Welsh recognized Baldwin Hardware Corporation for being the first company in the Philadelphia area to enroll in the national waste minimization partnership program.

“As a member of the greater Reading community, Baldwin Hardware has taken steps to go above and beyond environmental compliance. The company is committed to finding new and innovative ways to reduce pollution while still making a great product and earning a profit. That’s no small effort,” said Welsh.

The new voluntary program challenges businesses and manufacturers to become more environmentally aware and to adopt a resource conservation ethic that results in less waste, more recycling, and more environmentally sound products.

In 2001, Baldwin Hardware began implementing an active pollution prevention program within its manufacturing processes. Some of the environmentally-friendly efforts they implemented to date include: recycling 2,000 lbs./year of lead used in their polishing operations; reducing water use by more than one-third eliminating 67,000 pounds/year of sludge; and recycling 3.7 million pounds of brass scrap.

As a new waste minimization partner, Baldwin Hardware has committed to recovering and recycling additional brass scrap that is currently shipped as a polishing waste to a lead smelter for lead recycling. This will reduce the amount of lead that ends up as a waste, and also recovers copper, and zinc which are not currently recycled. The company’s initial goal is to recycle a minimum of 73,400 pounds of the brass fines by 2005.

Waste minimization not only means polluting less, it means saving money, too. Participating companies throughout America are learning that reducing or eliminating waste can also mean greater production efficiency, an improved image in their community, and increased profits.

EPA created the national waste minimization partnership program, one of EPA=s family of voluntary partnership programs, to focus efforts on reducing 30 highly-toxic, priority chemicals found in our nation=s hazardous waste.

The national waste minimization partnership program focuses on finding solutions that prevent pollution at the source, and by recovering or recycling these chemicals where they can not easily be eliminated or reduced at the source.

EPA’s goal is to work with industry and the public to reduce the presence of the 30 priority chemicals in hazardous waste by 50 percent by the year 2005, compared to amounts generated in 1991. For more information about the National Waste Minimization Partnership Program, go to: https://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/minimize/descrip.htm.