PPG has announced that its Barberton and Huron, OH, USA, facilities were recognized by the Ohio Chemistry Technology Council (OCTC) for programs that advance the company’s health, safety and environmental performance.

The Barberton location was presented with an Award for Excellence in Health and Safety Performance for an initiative that reduced injuries by 58% and spills by 29%. The facility transformed its health and safety procedures by implementing a Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) system.

HOP is a science-based approach to understanding how and why people make mistakes or errors and how to avoid them. The process teaches how to predict when human error is more likely to occur and recognize individual “error traps” that are present both at work and away. The methodology prescribes proven prevention tools to reduce the likelihood of error traps from occurring.

“I am very proud of our Barberton Team – each and every team member has embraced Human and Organizational Performance and used the methodology to put stronger controls in place that reduce risk of injury and spills in our processes,” says Tom Selleny, PPG plant manager, Barberton.

Part of PPG’s specialty coatings and materials business, the Barberton facility manufactures precipitated silica, optical monomers and coatings, PPG Teslin substrate and phosphorescent organic light-emitting diode (OLED) materials.

The Huron facility, which manufactures consumer paints such as the Glidden brand, received OCTC recognition for Environmental Performance. The site was able to reduce waste to landfill, waste disposal fees, raw materials and labor by replacing the dust collector. The dust collector is a piece of equipment that creates a vacuum to remove and collect airborne dust when powdered materials are added during the paint manufacturing process.

The new dust collector empties automatically into a single bulk bag rather than requiring manual intervention to empty the hopper in a single event. The dust is then re-purposed as a raw material used in the production process. Through this improvement, the facility team effectively eliminated its dust collector waste stream in 2019, and reduced total non-hazardous waste sent off-site by 9%.

“Receiving this acknowledgement from the OCTC further solidifies PPG’s sustainability goal to achieve zero landfill status from process waste and reduce our overall environmental impact,” explains Dave Kuhn, PPG plant manager, Huron.