Solmax slashes electric use, CO2 emissions

This month's Best Practices takes you to Quebec, Canada, and the city of Varennes — home to major geosynthetics manufacturer Solmax International Inc. The company has significantly cut its greenhouse gas emissions, following Canada's goals and using heat generated by its own extruders.

It's a story of a manufacturing company working closely with government.

Solmax claims to be the world's largest geosynthetics maker. A big move came in late 2017, when Solmax bought GSE Environmental Inc., the rival Houston-based geomembrane major.

Now Solmax already has a built-in positive environmental story to tell, just from its liners. The liners are used to protect the soil, water and air from pollutants and toxins. Solmax products are sold in more than 60 countries, from the company's factories in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Most plastics industry people know that geosynthetics are used to line and cap-off solid waste landfills, but these durable products are much more than that. Geosynthetics also are used for hazardous waste disposal sites, mining operations, coal ash containment, the energy sectors of biogas and hydraulic fracturing of natural gas and animal waste containment.

They even are used to line ponds — and at commercial fish and (shades of Forrest Gump) shrimp farming operations.

Geosynthetics often play a behind-the-scenes role in keeping people safe. But now Solmax is adding energy efficiency and climate protection to its story.

A company specializing in energy efficiency, called C-Nergie of Sainte-Julie, Quebec, was commissioned in 2015 to do an energy audit. That resulted in Solmax optimizing its heating system and centralized control the following year at the headquarters plant in Varennes.

The project involved recovering the waste energy from extruders that turn out the polyethylene sheeting liners. New heat recovery ducts were installed to deliver the heat to several operating and indoor liner storage areas. Solmax officials said the liner areas were especially prone to cold weather outside during loading and unloading operations.

This is Quebec. It gets cold.

A central controller system was installed to manage and optimize the heat recovery and redirection.

Since the system was installed, the project has helped Solmax achieve a 90 percent decrease in natural gas costs and reduced its natural gas consumption by a rate equivalent to the average annual electricity consumption of 97 residential homes — or, in an appropriate measurement for summertime, 10,035 propane cylinders used for backyard barbecues.

Even more significantly, the project has reduced annual greenhouse gas emissions by 200 tons, which Solmax said is the equivalent carbon dioxide emissions from 55.6 passenger vehicles.

The return on investment, when combined with the Canadian government's financial assistance for greenhouse gas initiatives, was just 9.5 months. Without the government subsidy, the payback period would have increased to about 5.5 years, according to Solmax.

That's a Best Practice that helps improve the environment and combats global warming. Think of how much heat comes off the machines in a plastics factory? Why not try and put it to good use?