Ford's Windsor Casting Plant earns national award
for innovation in preventing pollution

WINDSOR, ON,  – Ford's Windsor Casting Plant has marked its 65th birthday by earning a national award for the use of innovative technology in pollution prevention. The Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment presented its Pollution Prevention Award for Large Business for 1998 to the plant's CAW/management environmental representative team at a ceremony in Vancouver.

The award – presented by Council President Ty Lund, Minister of Environmental Protection for Alberta – recognizes the plant's pioneering use of ozonation technology to dramatically reduce organic compounds in its waste water.

Windsor Casting Plant is the largest iron foundry in Ontario and the only automotive iron foundry in Canada. It converts 130,000 tonnes of recycled steel and iron annually to produce more than one million cast iron engine blocks and 2.5 million crankshafts for new Ford cars and trucks. It was built in 1934 and employs 1,000 people.

It is the first industrial facility to use advanced ozonation technology for the treatment of organic compounds in wastewater.

"Ozonation is used in Europe for purification of drinking water," says Karen LeBlanc, Senior Manufacturing Engineer-Environment, "But this is the first time anyone has introduced that type of technology to the treatment of industrial wastewater from a facility on this scale."

LeBlanc says Ford invested $3 million in the ozonation facility at the iron foundry's wastewater treatment plant. The concrete block, two-room building contains three computerized ozone generators and a laboratory staffed by four operators. The ozonation facility began operations in June, 1997.

Since 1996, Ford has invested more than $10 million in an aggressive wastewater treatment program which ensures that all water used in processes at Windsor Casting Plant is consistently lower than limits set by MISA (Municipal-Industrial Strategy for Abatement). In April, 1998, Windsor Casting Plant was certified to the ISO 14001 environmental management standard.

Organic compounds are by-products of the iron casting process and there has been no proven means for their treatment in wastewater. From the plant's regular water treatment facility, wastewater is pumped into the totally-contained, ozone building where it is bombarded by ozone created by the generators. Ozone consists of molecules of highly reactive oxygen, capable of the chemical destruction of organic compounds. Ozone only lasts a few minutes and then naturally breaks down to oxygen.

Windsor Casting Plant's pioneering use of ozonation for wastewater treatment is being studied for application at other Ford Motor Company manufacturing facilities around the world.