DES MOINES – Eight Iowa businesses have teamed with the Iowa DNR’s Pollution Prevention (P2) Intern Program this summer to increase the efficiency of their operations and reduce associated costs.
Upper-level engineering students work on-site at their assigned company to conduct in-depth assessments, analyze data, research pollution prevention strategies, and provide calculated recommendations. Companies utilize the data to make informed decisions and drive implementations that will help meet their environmental performance goals.
“P2 is the process of going back up the pipe to identify the root cause of an inefficiency and applying source-reduction strategies to reduce or eliminate waste in a process or system,” says Jeff Fiagle, Team Lead for the DNR’s P2 Services team. Technical advisers with the P2 Intern Program provide training and oversight to the interns who seek to provide long-term solutions for the host companies.
Since 2001, more than 195 Iowa companies, hospitals, universities and government agencies have participated in this innovative program, accumulating more than $111.8 million in savings as a result of using resources more efficiently and improving environmental performance.
Environmental benefits achieved include the reduction of:
- 5.7 billion gallons of water
- 258,720 tons of solid waste
- 10,016 tons of hazardous waste
- 504.2 million kilowatt hours of electricity
- 22.2 million therms of energy.
Companies participating in the 2022 P2 Intern Program include (listed alphabetically by town):
Denison: Monogram Quality Foods
Des Moines: Dee Zee, Inc.
LeMars: Wells Enterprises, Inc.
Marshalltown: JBS USA, LLC
Muscatine: HNI Corporation
Ottumwa: JBS Swift Pork
Spirit Lake: Polaris Industries – Indian Motorcycle
Storm Lake: Tyson Foods Inc. - Hillshire Brands
Funding for the P2 Intern Program includes federal grants, portions of solid waste tonnage fees and cost share contributed by the host companies.
Pollution Prevention Services also provides confidential, non-regulatory, environmental technical assistance in the form of assessments, development assistance for Environmental Management Systems, workshops, and access to an electronic library of technical resources. These services are offered at no-cost to help companies reduce expenses through source-reduction strategies to improve process efficiency and reduce or eliminate waste.
For more information on the Pollution Prevention Intern Program and a list of 2022 projects, visit iowap2interns.com. Case summaries of the 2022 projects will be posted to this site in the fall.