Protecting Water

Water resources for polystyrene production are minimal and used solely as a coolant for finished product after leaving the reactor on the way to storage. Water is used more broadly in styrene production as a coolant and for steam. To improve efficiency and reduce water consumption, we invested capital at St. James to replace a cooling tower with state-of-the-art technology. We take our commitment to water quality seriously and return water to the Mississippi River much cleaner than before we borrowed it. Ongoing water turbidity samples – a measure of the relative clarity of water – consistently show dramatic improvement from high turbidity (low clarity) in the range of 150 NTU in our incoming water supply at St. James to a very low turbidity (high clarity) of less than 4 NTU in the water we return to the river.

AmSty is also a proud member of Operation Clean Sweep (OCS), a US-originated campaign that has gone global to help every plastic pellet-handling location achieve zero losses to protect water quality and wildlife. AmSty has been recognized for its excellence in OCS and invited to participate at an enhanced level in OCS Blue to further demonstrate our leadership commitment to protecting the environment.