Social Responsibility
Our social responsibility efforts strive to make where we work a better place. Our community program participation focuses on the Mechanicsburg area while our environmental initiatives acknowledge that every company has a global responsibility to reduce its footprint.
The following efforts are just some of the steps we take to improve our surroundings. The biggest step we take is one we repeat every day: respecting the people and resources we work with.
Environmental Initiatives
In May 2007 Fry successfully attained the Forest Stewardship Council® FSC® C100655 Chain of Custody certification. This certification demonstrates that we maintain Chain of Custody of the paper products we print on. Chain of Custody certifies that all wood raw materials, from which paper is manufactured, are from legal sources and not from protected forest areas. The origin of the wood must be documented and tracked at all steps of manufacturing and distribution. This certification was attained after a thorough audit by an independent auditor of our procedures and systems in place.
We have initiated many capital projects over the last several years that have been targeted at reducing energy consumption, recycling products, and reusing materials. Some of the major projects include the following:
- Roof Reflective Coatings
We have applied a reflective Aluma coat to the black build up roofs of two buildings and a white Hypalon coating to the black rubber roof of two other buildings. These two coatings will reflect the heat, rather than absorb it through the roof, lowering the space temperature at the ceiling by 15 degrees and reducing our energy use. - VFD projects and HVAC controls
Targeted at reducing electrical consumption, Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) projects and new HVAC controls to regulate heating and air conditioning in our facilities were installed in several areas in the company. - Gas Consumption
We experienced a marked improvement in gas consumption efficiency, primarily due to more efficient presses feeding the RTO units (pollution control equipment). The newer RTO units use the waste heat to maintain the dryer temperatures, thereby using less natural gas. - Oil Consumption
Aging oil fired heaters were replaced with energy efficient natural gas heaters. This project also eliminates the need for underground oil storage tanks, which can leak over time and damage the water table. - Process Water Projects
Improvements in the press water systems were initiated to not only clean up the water but also to make the process more efficient, thereby reducing power requirements and expensive chemicals. We have completed a major overhaul of our Building One pressroom air conditioning and process water systems by replacing six aging chiller systems with two new energy efficient centrifugal chiller systems. Replacement of an aging bindery air conditioner chiller will provide additional power savings. By reclaiming the wastewater from the production of RO water and using it to supply the cooling towers we have been able to save millions of gallons of water per year. We are now working on doing the same for the new cooling towers in Building One. - Solar Power
We recently installed a state-of-the-art photovoltaic (PV) solar collection system on the roof of our largest building. Excess power generated from the solar panels may also be fed back into the power grid, allowing Fry to sell any unused power back to the electric utility. The power generated by the PV system will also reduce the company's CO2 emissions significantly. - Environmental Projects for the Future
We are currently conducting Engineering feasibility studies on the use of renewable energy sources such as wind power, geothermal power, load cells and co-generation. - Wind Power
We are also in the very early stage of investigating alternative production of power from Geo sources like wind turbines. We have installed a weather data collection station and will be charting wind and weather conditions to determine if conditions are suitable for wind or solar power. - Co Generation
We are looking into reclaiming the waste heat off the RTO units to operate absorption chillers that will in turn produce process chilled water for the presses. - Soy Based Ink
One of our ink suppliers, Sun Chemical, has worked with us and with the American Soybean Association (ASA) to determine the maximum soybean levels that can be utilized across the various types of printing applications including news inks, heatset inks, and sheetfed inks. Sun is now formulating inks that meet the minimum soy requirements to use with the "SoySeal" label. They are also evaluating renewable resources in addition to soy, such as linseed, rapeseed, canola, and corn oils. They also have developed trademark products such as the Naturalith TM (soy based products), Triton TM (low VOC inks) and no/low VOC pressroom consumables. Fry is currently using several grades of ink that contain the soy formulation, especially in our nonheat pressroom.