Imagine your average compost heap. Items such as wilted lettuce leaves or leftover banana peels probably figure in the picture somewhere. Steel dust or unused industrial chemicals more than likely do not. For Green Bay company Feeco International however, metal dust and other wastes do have a place in the pile.
Feeco, which started in 1951 as a fertilizer equipment and engineering company, has grown progressively greener over the last two decades. Feeco has a strong interest in environmental management; it concerns itself more with renewable materials than renewable energy. Two of its main types of technology are thermal processing, as used in rotary dryers, kilns and coolers, and agglomeration, which goes hand in hand with thermal equipment.
Feeco has likened its work to a large-scale, high-quality version of composting. Many of Feeco’s projects involve keeping potentially valuable wastes such as metal dust, various chemicals and sludges out of local landfills, reusing them in environmentally-friendly ways instead of discarding them. This not only reduces land and water contamination, but also decreases both waste transportation and future clean-up costs.
Any company with a waste generation problem, from steel mills to municipalities to farmers, is a potential Feeco customer. Feeco has worked with companies everywhere from across the street to across the globe, from South Africa’s gold and diamond mines and Australian chicken farmers to the dairy farms and meat-packing plants of Wisconsin’s own Brown County.
Though there are several other companies working along similar lines, Feeco’s knowledge of fertilizer after 59 years in business puts it ahead of its competitors. Currently, Feeco employs between sixty and seventy people at its office and shop, and looks forward to further growth as the number of inquiries it receives from industries increases.