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Warrick Alcoans Participate in Alcoa's Worldwide Month of Service
October marked Alcoa's Worldwide Month of Service - a company-wide event that recognizes and encourages the volunteer efforts of thousands of Alcoans around the world, and serves as a unified timeframe for Alcoans to help nonprofit organizations improve the quality of life in Alcoa communities worldwide. "Alcoa employees work hard each day demonstrating their talent to solve problems with their minds and their hands. The Month of Service provides an excellent opportunity for us to put those same talents to work for the community as our fellow employees around the world do the same in their neighborhoods," said Ann Whitty, Vice President and General Manager for Alcoa's Rigid Packaging Division.
During the month, Warrick Alcoans worked individually and in teams to:
- Remove nearly 1500 pounds of trash from along the banks of the Pigeon Creek - including 780 pounds of scrap steel that was able to be recycled for cash
- Mulch more than 1000 feet of trails at the Howell Wetlands
- Plant 10 trees along the Pigeon Creek Greenway near the Evansville Museum
- Help train 36 firefighters from 10 departments around the region at Alcoa's fire training field
- Educate more than 120 students about how business and government interact at the Close Up program at the Southern Indiana Career and Technical Center
- Demonstrate the impact that communications technology has inside a manufacturing business to University of Evansville students
- Positively affect the regional community in ways that can not be measured or imagined
As a "match" to the volunteer time that has been contributed by employees, Alcoa gave grants to WWNS and the Evansville Parks Foundation. WWNS received $5000 to purchase educational materials that will be used in outreach programs to teach the community about water quality and how individuals can impact it. The Parks Foundation received a $3000 ACTION (Alcoans Coming Together In Our Communities) grant that purchased the trees that employees planted along the Greenway.
"Our natural resources need constant care and stewardship, and we depend on volunteers to do this work," said Alice Rademacher, Director of Wesselman Woods Nature Society. "We have a long and significant partnership with Alcoa. We are thrilled that in just a single month this relationship gave us a $5000 grant, more than 1000 pounds of aluminum to be recycled for cash, and volunteer hours that are invaluable to our programs."
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Your Feedback is Appreciated
Thank you to the more than 200 of our stakeholders who took the time to give us feedback during the month of September through our online survey. The diverse group from across the region told us many things about our community, their impressions of Alcoa, and the issues they want Alcoa involved in. All of this information will be used to continue to improve our community engagement plans and as we deploy our resources to help address community challenges.
Respondents told us that the critical challenges facing the community of highest priority are: Supporting improvements in the quality of education; controlling costs of healthcare; attracting new jobs; improving quality of life in the community; and ensuring the protection of clean air.
For nearly every critical challenge identified, respondents believed that Alcoa's appropriate level of involvement is to "partner with others." The only exceptions were issues dealing with the local environment, where many of the stakeholders believed Alcoa should "take the lead." We agree that this is an important role for us to play, and remain committed to engaging in open dialogue about our environmental impact as we look for ways to decrease emissions. We will also continue to focus our Alcoa Foundation giving in this area to increase education and understanding about the environment across the entire community.
We also learned about items where we can continue to improve communication about our results. As an example, while Alcoa is recognized as a worldwide leader in employee health and safety, many of our key stakeholders are unaware of our efforts in that area. And, while most of you consider us "among the best" companies on nearly every metric asked, we still have work to do to reach our goal of being "the best" company in the community as a part of Alcoa's mission to be the best company in the world.
We do appreciate the time you gave to giving us the feedback and hope that you take the opportunity to do the same thing "in the moment" throughout the year. We are sharing the full details of the survey with our Community Advisory Board and will continue to incorporate what we learn from you in our future actions.
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Environmental Open House
Warrick Operations hosted our 9th annual Environmental Open House on Wednesday, October 4th. The event saw nearly 50 community members attend to learn more about our business and our environmental management systems and impacts. Warrick's environmental leaders presented data about our 2005 environmental performance and shared information about future plans that will impact it in the future. The attendees then participated in tabletop feedback sessions facilitated by Warrick leaders to tell us what they heard; what they liked and didn't like; and what they want to know more about.
More than 30 of the participants loaded buses for a tour of the plant that took them past the construction site at the Warrick Power Plant before stopping to look in at Pot Line 6 and walking along Roll Coat 2. Seeing the facilities and processes first-hand provides a much greater understanding to how we make rolled aluminum sheet.
The Environmental Open House continues to be a key opportunity to engage our stakeholders and learn what matters most. The event has evolved substantially from the first one and continues to provide us with ideas that lead to focused action and improved communications.
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Project wins two environmental excellence awards
On September 20th, Alcoa received the Governor's Environmental Excellence Award for the "slotted anode project." The same project was recognized by the Metropolitan Evansville Chamber of Commerce for their Environmental Excellence Award for Energy Conservation on October 18th. So, what is a slotted anode and how does it positively impact the environment?
During the smelting of aluminum an electric current is passed through the carbon-lined reaction cell (known as a pot), to liberate elemental aluminum so that it can collect on the bottom of the pot. At the same time, oxygen is released and can become trapped on the under side of the carbon anodes used to transfer the electric current in the pot. This layer of oxygen can create "bubble noise" within the process creating the need for more energy to be consumed per pound of aluminum smelted.
To address this issue, the Warrick smelter team designed a way to press a slot into each anode as it is formed. The slot provides an escape route for the oxygen to reduce the bubble noise in the pot, which results in lower pot voltage. The lower pot voltage, along with improved pot stability, has enabled an improvement in power consumption of approx. 0.10 KWH / LB of aluminum produced. It is expected to result in 59,400 megawatts of annual electricity savings.
The following air emission reductions are associated with saving 59,400 MW of electricity:
SO2: 900 Tons
NOx: 100 Tons
Particulates: 30 Tons
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Household Hazardous Waste Day also a Winner
Alcoa's partnership with the Warrick County Solid Waste Management District also earned an Environmental Excellence Award from the Metropolitan Evansville Chamber of Commerce for Recycling/Reuse. This partnership that began in May 1993 has resulted in two events each year that allow Warrick County residents to dispose of household hazardous waste at no cost to the individual.
Two events have been held each year with the 28th event held in October 2006. It has grown in participation and popularity over the years, as evidenced by the number of participants and volume wastes collected from the events. In the most recent event, 721 households brought in more than 79,000 total pounds of waste. Of the waste collected, 88% was reused or recycled with less than 1% going into a landfill. Without this opportunity, all of the waste would likely have ended up in local landfills.
Habitat for Humanity was present to collect cell phones and print cartridges for fund raising, and took any working home-related items to sell in their Home Store. B & T Computers collected working and repairable computer equipment that gets donated to local nonprofits.
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Warrick Alcoans work Day of Caring
Warrick Operations' United Way campaign officially got underway on September 15th with the Day of Caring. Nearly 40 employees volunteered their time and talent to the YMCA's Caldwell Community Outreach Center painting, mending and sprucing up the center that supports youth programs for inner-city children ages 7 to 18. Their work resulted in an ACTION (Alcoans Coming Together In Our Neighborhood) grant of $3000 to assist with ongoing needs and program enhancements at the Center.
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