Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/586296
October 14, 2015 WEEKLY EDITION Code of Excellence Part 5 Excelle nce in Our Environment This week, we spoke with Ron Crosier, PSAI Past President of the Board and President and General Manager of Crosier's Sanitary Services in Fayetteville, West Virginia. If you attended the Nuts and Bolts Educational Conference in Dal las in November 2014, you heard keynote speaker Jon Kallen discuss site wastewater alternatives and solutions. New technologies like Moving Bed Bio Reactor ( MBBR ) and other innovative approaches give PROs options to decrease or eliminate the need to dispos e of waste at wastewater treatment plants . At Crosier's they have fully implemented MBBR technology, which means fewer (or no) trips to the wastewater treatment plant, and very little cost to run it. Crosier's needed a viable waste disposal alternative i n order to grow Ron explains, "We didn't have a good alternative to dispose of waste, and waste water treatment plants in our area are few and far between. Land application is not an option in our part of the country, so w e were hauling waste to three diffe rent plants – each was over an hour away . I n order to expand our bu siness we had to come up with other solution s . We spent around $450,000 on the MBBR, but it only costs us $15 - 20 a day to run it. Compared to the significant labor and transportation costs we were spending previously, combined with the waste water treatment plant fees we're saving, we've been able to grow our business . Having the MBBR on site got us out from under the thumb of the wastewater treatment plants." The Code states: We act in safe and healthy ways, and we protect the natural environment. We properly hand le and legally dispose of waste. We monitor the containment of waste in a manner that meets or exceeds the standards of the relevant regulatory agencies. Water savings The water that is filtered out of the MBBR at Crosier's is then used to recharge its fleet of portable toilets. This means th at every porta ble restroom at Crosiers saves five gallons of potable water each week because the water to charge the unit has been recycled on site. (This is in addition to the usual 1.6 gallons saved per use by each portable unit.) Ron explains, "It's fresh water savin gs that really adds up over time. Any filtered water that is not used to recha rge toilets is so clean that up to 30,000 gallons can be disposed of each day in a small stream - without any environmental concerns. We were the first MBBR plant in West Virgini a, and the first in our industry. It took a year and a half to get the permits finalized, but we hope our work will pave the way for others as MBBR technology becomes more widespread in the portable sanitation industry." Our members' c ommitment t o operating in alignment with the Code's guidelines will significantly improve both customers' experiences and the image of our industry. Click here to download your copy.