Tiffany Trinh

Industry: Aerospace
Project Type: Water Use and Waste Reduction
Location: Gresham, OR
Major/University: Chemical Engineering, Oregon State University

Summary

Tiffany researched methods to reduce water usage and reduce the volume of hazardous waste during her internship at Boeing.

Potential Impacts

Tiffany’s recommendations to Boeing could make annual reductions of:

  

864,000

Gallons of Water

Background

Boeing is an aerospace company in Portland with 1,800 employees that supplies parts and sub-assemblies for the airplane programs 737 and 777. Boeing has targeted sustainability goals to meet by 2025 including the reduction of hazardous waste, energy usage, water usage, solid waste, and greenhouse gas emission. The company wanted to analyze the use of water meters, waste characterization, and the implementation of a sludge dryer to reduce water usage and hazardous waste.

Solutions

Tiffany’s recommendations to promote Boeing’s sustainability goals are to:

  • Implement a signal in the water meters that alerts overflowing on water meters to reduce excess water usage
  • Create a waste training guide for employees to correctly categorize waste as hazardous or non-hazardous based on the contamination levels in solvent rags used during the manufacturing process
  • Reduce the water content of the waste water sludge by using a sludge dryer to decrease the volume of disposable waste