Saint-Gobain, through its building products subsidiary CertainTeed LLC, will install recycling technology at its gypsum plant in Palatka, Fla., increasing the recycled content in its wallboard products manufactured in Palatka by 18,000 tons/year while also reducing the site’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2,260 tons/year. The project represents a $1.1 million investment.
Gypsum wallboard is made from a gypsum slurry that is poured and dries between two sheets of paper. Some scrap materials, consisting of gypsum and paper, are normally created every time a production line is started up or shut down, or when production equipment is changed to manufacture different sizes of wallboard.
The new recycling technology in Palatka will work by grinding the waste gypsum and waste paper down into fine particles, allowing the plant to capture and internally recycle the materials, which are sorted and then reintroduced to the production process at the plant.
