A few years ago, Bridgestone Americas’ facility in Wilson, NC. set a goal of reducing water use in their plant by 40% They harvested the “low hanging fruit” of water conservation by changing all sinks and toilets to low flow models and installed waterless urinals. This action helped but bigger steps were necessary to reduce the annual use of 125 million gallons of water. In 2017, the plant began a program of using a nitrogen process to replace the 400-degree water that had previously been used in the curing process during manufacturing of the tires This action reduced the water used by 20% and the conversion to nitrogen curing is still ongoing. The staff understood that to make additional water reductions outside advice would be useful; so in February 2020 they contacted Waste Reduction Partners.
Waste Reduction Partners is based in Asheville, North Carolina and is a grant-funded, regional government organization that does water, energy and solid waste assessments for industrial, commercial and institutional entities. Uniquely, the assessors are retired engineers and scientists, the group soon to be most at risk for the COVID-19 virus. Before any on-site visit could be made to Bridgestone, the entire state was in lock down. Since both Bridgestone and Waste Reduction Partners were restricting travel and visitors, a virtual audit was proposed. Waste Reduction Partners staff conducted the assessment by remotely sharing data and historical information provided by Bridgestone. They then used this audit to create a written guideline for future water savings.
The virtual audit’s key recommendations were to measure all water used in the plant to identify trouble spots. There is a master meter for the whole plant but no measurement system for the various sub-areas of the plant. Acoustical flow meters were recommended so that measurement could be made without disassembling the plant’s piping. Monitoring these acoustical meters will pin-point where additional water savings will come from.
