I recently asked the magazine’s readers for their own, unique green ideas. Here’s input from Steve Long, president of Custom Carbide Cutter Inc., Cincinnati, OH, a manufacturer of carbide cutting tools.
“Here are a couple of things we are doing this summer (to become greener and save money):
- All of the cardboard boxes we bring in are now shredded to be used as packing and oil-absorbing agents for our manufacturing equipment.
- A lot of our incoming material arrives in plastic cases–we now collect all of the cases and when the delivery truck arrives with a new load of material, we ship back the plastic cases to be reused.
- Lastly—and this is kind of different–we recently had our plant repainted and noticed that the painters, rather than throw their used paint rollers away after use, using a new unit called a Paintrifuge. The unit cleaned all of the rollers and dried them within 3 min., ready for reuse, rather than having the rollers wind up in our land fill. They said that the Paintrifuge is being used by many painters because of some of the U.S. Green Builders Council’s concerns with saving water and landfill waste. I thought it was pretty cool.”
Not only do I agree with Steve about how cool the Paintrifuge is, I wish I had thought of it !
MetalForming magazine editor Brad Kuvin has covered the metalforming and fabricating industry since 1984. His interviews with engineers and managers at manufacturing sites aim to transfer technology to the magazine's readers and website visitors, helping them improve productivity, quality and safety.Share: 
