It’s no secret that the mining and production of granite and quartz countertops has not been the most environmentally friendly endeavor. At Millennium, we’re committed to changing this. We have proactively taken several steps to dramatically reduce the carbon emissions output and water consumption requirements of our fabrication facility.
The production of stone countertops requires a lot of water, roughly 20,000 gallons per day. As long as we’ve been producing countertops we have been recycling our water. Recently, we added a settling tank to aid the throughput and efficiency of our filter press. With the help of our new filter press we’re able to filter, clean and recycle our water faster than we can use it, guaranteeing our ability to operate using 100% recycled water.
In the summer of 2017 we installed a 330 panel solar array on our fabrication building in Ottumwa. This solar array generates enough power to offset 100% of our yearly energy requirements. Additionally, during especially sunny days our array sends any excess power into the local power grid, providing a renewable source of energy for the local community. When we purchased the slab room next door to our production facility, it received its own 30 panel solar array to offset its power needs.
As with the conversion of any good into a finished product, there is a certain amount of unavoidable waste when converting slabs into countertops. We wanted to make sure this waste wasn’t just wasted, but repurposed. To accomplish this, we teamed with our local landfill. Special bins at our fabrication facility are designated for stone waste, the landfill picks these bins up and uses the sorted stone waste in the construction of roads for heavy machinery.
