PFFC - September 2007 - (Page 40)

GREEN CONVERTING lfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes may not be household names. However, their invention of Bubble Wrap in the 1960s landed them in the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame and was the start of Sealed Air Corp. With more than 100 facilities worldwide, the company manufactures a variety of products, including Cryovac fresh food packaging and other lightweight materials for protective packaging that save energy by reducing freight. According to Ricky Bryant, senior facilities engineer at the company’s Duncan, SC, location, Sealed Air puts great emphasis on saving energy and improving environmental performance in its operations. So it’s not surprising that a trade magazine article detailing how a company achieved substantial electric power and cost savings attracted considerable interest at Sealed Air headquarters. “The article described how a company really cut their energy costs by changing to lighting made by Orion Energy Systems,” Bryant says. “Sure, we were interested in reducing costs, but we also knew that anything that reduces power consumption benefits the environment.” Due Diligence A Lights Lead the Way Sealed Air wraps up energy efficiency and cost savings while providing environmental benefits with high-intensity fluorescent fixtures. Edited by Claudia Hine, Managing Editor uConverter Infot uSealed Air Corp. | 100 Rogers Bridge Rd., Duncan, SC 29334 | 800-391-5645 | www.sealedair.com To facilitate its own test, Sealed Air purchased Orion compact, modular T8 Series high-intensity fluorescent (HIF) fixtures and measured energy consumption and operating costs against metal halide lighting. After three months, Sealed Air found its savings to be on par with the company featured in the article. “The interesting thing was that during our three-month test period, quite a number of people who came to the headquarters for other purposes had a chance to see the lighting fixtures and assess the test while it was in progress,” adds Bryant. “That stirred up a lot of interest, especially from our people working in plants in areas where the electric rates are higher, like California.” Following the test period, the decision was made to retrofit the facility with the HIF fixtures from Orion. All told, the packaging systems and materials manager replaced forty 1,000-W metal halide lights with 80 eight-lamp HIF fixtures. Lighting power consumption had been projected to fall from a pre-retrofit 334,846 kilowatt-hrs (kWh) per year to 174,350, a 48% drop, with power bills dropping accordingly. “Of course, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the energy savings,” Bryant says. He adds he was confident the cost and energy usage projections had been met, although this could not be determined precisely because the plant’s electrical system did not separate the lighting, which is why the test had been necessary. WWW.PFFC-ONLINE.COM 40 | SEPTEMBER 2007 http://www.sealedair.com http://WWW.PFFC-ONLINE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of PFFC - September 2007

Table of Contents First Glance From the Editor Calendar of Events Web Lines Process Management News Clips Narrow Web & Label Reporter Narrow Web & Label What’s New Products Narrow Web Sustainability: Going Green? What's the Score with Wal-Mart's Scorecard? Straight Talk From Your Trade Associations Learn 5 Key Elements to Creating Cost-Effective and Eco-Conscious Packaging Install Energy-Efficient Light Fixtures and Reap the Environmental Benefits People, Profit, Planet: How to Balance the Impact of a Triple-bottom-line Philosophy Show Preview What’s New Products Services Directory Classified Marketplace Equipment Buyers & Sellers Advertisers Index Experience Speaks

PFFC - September 2007

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