Energy Conservation Efforts

Well-Oiled Machines That Run On Natural Gas

All of our American Gypsum plants operate on natural gas to produce our products. We collect data and continuously monitor all natural gas fired equipment for complete oversight and management of our energy consumption on a daily basis. We also perform energy audits at every facility each year.

At our Georgetown, South Carolina facility, the audits we've performed have helped us develop that location into a financially and environmentally positive facility. This plant takes synthetic material that has a very high free moisture content and converts it into wallboard with better energy efficiency than most of our other plants that process natural gypsum, which has little or no free moisture.

How Does The Georgetown Facility Create Better Energy Efficiency?

• We use high efficiency burners.
• Heat exchangers are used on dryer exhaust stack to preheat combustion air to burners.
• We capture exhaust gases from hotter dryer zones and circulate it back into the dryer into lower temperature zones to utilize all heat possible.
• Exhaust stream from the cooling down our gypsum stucco is reused to provide preheated combustion air for the FGD drying process.

Water Conservation Efforts

With plant locations in the desert southwest, the Colorado mountains and the coast of South Carolina, we deal with a limited water supply when we produce our wallboard products. Our water usage is closely monitored to ensure we get the most out of every drop of water we use.

One of the keys to our water reduction efforts are our special raw material additives. These additives allow us to reduce to amount of water needed to formulate our wallboard. Additionally, we supplement our water supply again and again by recycling process water and pumping it back into a holding tank to be used in the wallboard mixers. Finally, steam from our stacks is condensed as it is processed through heat exchangers so that not only do we squeeze every bit of energy from the heat in the stack we also squeeze every bit of water vapor possible to then be reused in our process.

Face & Back Paper

In Our Business, Waste Is Too Important To Waste

Our sister company, Republic Paperboard Company, LLC based in Lawton, Oklahoma, produces the face and back paper for American Gypsum's products. At Republic there's no such thing as waste. All the materials used in producing the paper are from waste sources.

Republic is 100% recycled/post consumer in their production process. Any scrap that is left over is re-introduced back into its production process. Whatever cannot be utilized by Republic is shipped off for use in alternative markets, such as cardboard tube manufacturing.

The entire process occurs in one of the most efficient paper mills in North America, where 100% clean-burning natural gas is used and large quantities of their waste water is used in Republic's dilution, showering and pulping processes. For water that is not recycled, Republic has a pre-treatment facility which discharges treated water that is consistently below the Total Suspended Solids (TSS) limit permitted by the city of Lawton.

With their use of waste products and recycled paper, Republic saves approximately 2.2 million trees each year.

Mine Stewardship

Maximum Output. Minimum Environmental Impact.

At American Gypsum, we operate three gypsum quarries in the United States, with all operations monitored by either the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or state run Department of Mines. For each quarry, we have mining and reclamation plans, which are fully approved by the appropriate state or federal agency. These plans include mining practices that use sequential backfilling and concurrent reclamation with waste rock material that can't be used at our gypsum plants.

These mined out areas are then re-sloped and reseeded to restore the natural habitat of the area, minimizing any visual impact or hydrological impact our quarries might have had.

Synthetic Gypsum

Gypsum Doesn't Have To Come From A Mine. It Can Be Made Too.

The process of making American Gypsum's Synthetic Gypsum (FGD Gypsum) at our Georgetown, SC facility starts at our partner power plants, where SO2 gas (sulfur dioxide) is passed through limestone that is sprayed in the air pollution control scrubber stack. The resulting sludge is then subjected to forced air oxidation to produce Calcium Sulfate (Gypsum), which is washed and inspected to ensure all of the impurities have been removed.

This Synthetic Gypsum is tested by the power plant before it is sent to our facility. It is then tested again to make sure it meets every single specification we require to produce American Gypsum wallboard.

Synthetic gypsum, which comprises about 95%, by weight, of American Gypsum wallboard, is processed almost identically as you would natural gypsum rock:

• Dry and calcine Synthetic Gypsum into a stucco before mixing it with water and other setting and binding ingredients in a continuous mixer
• Place mixture between two sheets of moving paper
• Form into a long ribbon of wallboard
• Set and harden wallboard before cutting to appropriate length by a rotating knife
• Send through a dryer and run through finishing saws to get it to exact length
• Bundle and stack into units before sending it off to the warehouse

Typically, Synthetic Gypsum has lower trace metal content then what is typically found in residential soil standards. All of our synthetic gypsum wallboard products are just as safe as natural gypsum and are certified as low volatile organic compound (VOC) products by the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute.