Colorado District Gives Advanced Circuits Award
The Metro Wastewater Reclamation District of Colorado gave Advanced Circuits of Aurora, a gold award for being 100 percent compliant with guidelines from the district, the Colorado Department of Health, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
This is the fifth time the company has won the award.
Advanced Circuits' pollution prevention and waste minimization efforts include sending spent etchants off-site to recycle the chemical constituents present in the waste that have commercial value under a non-solid waste recycling exemption allowed by the Colorado Hazardous Waste Regulations. The company continues to drum up spent nickel baths, collects excess copper panel frames, copper panel waste pieces, and spent silver-rich photo processing solutions and ships these materials off-site for reclamation.
The manufacturer also installed a new pumice scrubber system to reduce the amount of corrosive chemistry used to prep circuit boards for subsequent chemical processing steps and a new etcher, which will reduce ammonia emissions.
"Manufacturing plants including PCB companies have traditionally had a bad reputation related to their impact on the environment," said John Yacoub, Advanced Circuits president and chief executive officer. "At Advanced Circuits, we dedicate ourselves to producing the highest quality PCBs and products while minimizing any negative effects that manufacturing can have on the environment. Our customers can be confident that their PCBs have been produced by an environmentally conscious manufacturing partner."
The district is the wastewater treatment authority for most of metro Denver. The Colorado state legislature in 1961 created the district to provide wastewater transmission and treatment services to member municipalities and special connectors in compliance with federal, state, and local laws.