Green – Briteline Extrusions

Briteline is committed to preserving and protecting our environment. As longtime residents of South Carolina’s low country, we wish to preserve this beautiful place for coming generations. As an extruder, we are proud to promote that aluminum is the most sustainable material on the planet. It is durable, versatile… and infinitely recyclable without downgrade.

Reduce... Reuse... Recycle

As a member of the South Carolina SMART BUSINESS Recycling Program, we report our recycling efforts annually.

Last year Briteline recycled:

Aluminum

1,019,036

pounds

Cardboard

9,000

pounds

Used Oil

2,130

gallons

Steel

4,409

pounds

Billets

We purchase secondary 6063 billet for our Acid Etch Anodize, Powder Coat, and Mill finish extrusions. It takes less than 8% of the energy to produce billet from scrap than it does for Primary, thereby substantially reducing the embodied carbon in the produced extrusions. Our secondary billet supplier utilizes a scrap-to-prime aluminum % ratio of 75:25.

We use Primary 6463 alloy for our Brite Dip Anodized extrusions to meet customer demand for fine finishes.

All the extrusions we produce are infinitely recyclable by the end user.

Water Treatment Plant

To operate our Anodizing line, we must have a licensed engineer on site. The building, equipment, and personnel are similar to a city’s Water Works Department. Each year, we process 6,060,000 gallons of water, returning it as clean as when it was received from our municipal water system.

LED Lighting Program

Briteline has a multi-year program replacing incandescent lights in the plant with LED lights that are energy efficient, produce little heat, do not emit ultraviolet rays, and last 42 times longer. Annual energy savings of 156,272 KwH.

Pallet Recycle Program

Every shipment that leaves Briteline goes on a pallet to protect the extrusions in transit. We have developed a pallet return program to insure we get pallets returned every quarter to be used again. Annually, our program has over 1000 pallets in circulation.

Packaging

Briteline invested in spiral bundling machines for packing customer’s orders without boxes. This has resulted in using far less cardboard here, and saves our customers from having to dispose of the boxes upon delivery.

Clean Air

The Crossair Fume Scrubber is an important part of our environmental efforts at Briteline. The capital investment Briteline made to purchase, install, and maintain the scrubber was to enable us to clean the air from our anodizing processes before it goes back into the environment.

Automation

Briteline’s facility management team has focused on automation in every department. Motion detectors turn lights off in unoccupied areas to save energy. A robotic arm for deburring in Fabrication expedites the process and reduces repetitive motion injuries. New CNC machines have automated production of shower door handles and small parts.