Recycle

Pendle Hill, Barnoldswick

The local authority, under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 Part 1, and the new Pollution, Prevention, and Control (England and Wales) Regulations 2000, is responsible for regulating not only for air emissions but also wastewater, noise and vibration and ensuring that Albert Hartley, Ltd. meets these regulations.

Emissions to Atmosphere

Basic requirements of the regulations ensure that emissions from the exhaust stacks of the print machine driers and the stenters are monitored for particles, such as carbon particulates, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), formaldehyde, and ammonia.

As Hartleys uses a water based print system, it is exempt from monitoring for particulates and VOCs. When applying crease resist resin during the finishing process monitoring has shown that extremely negligible amounts of formaldehyde are released. As these results are consistently low, Hartley's is exempt from continuous inspection.

Albert Hartley's is actively investigating ways of reducing the emission to an absolute minimum.

Effluent Treatment

The current Wastewater Treatment Plant was installed in 1996 to replace existing machinery. The reliability of the plant is extremely important because if any part of the recycling process fails, production at the print works has to cease as Hartley's would be in violation of the environmental protection acts.

The wastewater from the printworks is chemically treated through a pipe fluctuator to separate the solids from the water. The addition of air bubbles, which attach themselves to the solids, enables them to float to the top of the dissolved air flotation cell (DAFCell). The solids are then scraped from the surface of the DAF Cell, pressed into cakes, and used as agricultural fertilizer. The cleaned water is then recirculated around the printworks for cleaning print blankets, color pipes, etc.

Albert Hartleys is proud of its environmental record and is committed to continuing to work with the local authority to ensure its compliance to both current and future regulations.