Hoosier Companies Receive Pollution Prevention Grants
Stellantis operates several facilities in Indiana, including the Kokomo Casting Plant. (photo courtesy of Stellantis)
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management has awarded a total of $50,000 in grant funding to five Hoosier businesses. The grants will be used to help implement pollution prevention projects at each company’s facility.
The funding was made possible in partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Purdue Manufacturing Extension Partnership. IDEM says the projects receiving funding were developed following waste, air, solid waste, toxics and energy audits at each facility.
Each recipient will receive $10,000, which will account for 50% of the cost to implement the projects. The recipients include:
BCI Solutions Inc. (Bremen): Funding will be used to train staff on compressed air basics and energy savings to improve institutional knowledge. Also, BCI Solutions, Inc. will switch to more efficient light fixtures at their facility and anticipates to save 50,000 kilowatt hours annually.
Ameri-Can Engineering (Argos): Funding will be used to improve the layout of their plant, reduce the use of forklifts, reduce heating and cooling losses, and upgrade to more efficient equipment. Ameri-Can Engineering expects to see an annual reduction of more than 12,000 kilowatt hours in electrical use, reductions in natural gas consumption, reductions in hazardous materials used and waste generated, and a reduction in air emissions and water use.
Stellantis Kokomo Transmission Plant (Kokomo): Funding will be used to eliminate a waste stream by recovering and separating metal and oil for reuse and recycling. This will result in a reduction of approximately 240,000 pounds of waste per year that is currently being incinerated.
ALOM Technologies (Indianapolis): Funding will be used to install electric vehicle chargers for its fleet, digitize processes instead of using paper, and train staff on the benefits of pollution prevention and sustainability.
Stellantis Kokomo Casting Plant (Kokomo): Funding will be used to retrofit their current cooling process, which will result in the reduction of 305,000 gallons of water per year.
IDEM says a second round of grants will be announced in early 2022.