Oil Skimmer Pays Off for Paper Mill

Skip Hogue is maintenance manager at St Joe Container Corporation, a paper mill and converter in College Park, GA that produces about 100 tons of corrugated boxes each day.

Hogue noticed excessive oil in the wastewater discharge from boxboard operations. This oil comes from the rolls and bearings on the corrugating machines, and ends up in the plant’s drainage system. Drainage water empties into a three-stage collection pit that has a system of three weirs for skimming and decanting the fluid before water is allowed to enter the city’s sewer lines. A belt skimmer in the second stage pit wasn’t performing satisfactorily and oil was ending up in discharge water.

It wasn’t long before Hogue replaced the old belt skimmer with Abanaki’s Oil Grabber® Model 4.

Hogue’s skimmed oil is picked up by an oil recycling company. The company’s policy is that they do not charge for pick up if there isn’t a lot of sludge in the oil that requires pretreatment before processing. Hogue says, “That could be a problem… because cardboard scrap and starch from the production process ends up in the plant’s drainage water. So we purchased the Abanaki belt skimmer with their optional decanter, which has a screen to remove sludge and provides a final separation stage… the unit has been running for months without attention.”

Hogue adds, “Since installing the Abanaki unit, we haven’t had to pay to have our waste oil hauled away, and College Park sewage treatment officials are happy with the quality of our water discharge.”

Edited for length: Published in Pollution Engineering