Committed to Foundry Sand Recycling

Thousands of tons of foundry sand that could no longer be reconditioned and reused to make molds avoided the landfill and was instead put to good use. That sand is now benefitting the community of Waupaca, Wisconsin through a unique development project.

Etowah, Tennessee, is home to Waupaca Foundry Plant 6. It is also home to a lot of cows. The care of the bovine population had become increasingly difficult for the McMinn County dairy farmers due to the scarcity of affordable sand bedding.

Once upon a time, foundry slag had a boring reputation. Its unglamorous name was synonymous with unwanted leftovers. You could imagine it as the unfortunate, unusable “eggshells” tossed away after the “omelet” was made, relegated to linger in landfills.

The land around the church wasn’t very useful — the ground was uneven, making construction projects nearly impossible. Partnering with the congregation community, however, Waupaca Foundry helped make a dream project become reality.

For Waupaca Foundry Plant 5, the existing parking and access road configuration leave a lot to be desired. So when we set about improving the situation, we were determined to get it right—and include a few bonus improvements for the community along the way.

At Waupaca Foundry, we believe it’s imperative to continue finding smarter ways to use our natural resources—recycling, repurposing, and reusing materials everywhere we can.

Clay may seem like an uninteresting topic, but for many industries having a supply of the proper type of clay can be critical. The landfill industry, among others including the agriculture and general construction industries, have applications which demand low hydraulic conductivity barriers.

Waupaca Foundry has a long history of reusing foundry sand as many times as possible in the production of iron castings. Then, Waupaca Foundry promotes environmentally beneficial strategies to repurpose these sands, as well as slags and sand fines, that can no longer be used in the casting process.

The Stein Turkey Farm in Evanston, Indiana, is a successful contract turkey operation, totaling 230 acres of land, five 20,000-square-foot buildings, and the capacity to market 100,000 poults (chicks) yearly. Essential to its continued success is ensuring a healthy environment for its turkey tenants.

Waupaca Foundry is proud of its sustainability efforts. In the case of reusing foundry sand, thousands of tons are kept out of landfills each year, which is good for the foundry, good for the environment, and good for farms. It’s a win-win-win.