for the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration. Initial research is aimed at making sure homogenization won't disrupt normal treatment processes. For example, Dr. Garner explains, homogenization could coat particles, including bacteria, with lipid. It might disrupt digestive processes of bacteria on nonlipids. Or bacteria might be sheared in the homogenization process. If the lipid problem can be overcome by homogenization, not only will sewage treatment be more efficient, but capital costs of new facilities may be lower. Dr. Garner estimates that capital investment for treatment per individual runs roughly about $1000 per person in the U.S. If homogenization works, this might be cut by about $5.00. This may not seem like much, but multiplied by 200 million, it becomes significant.
PLASTICS:
Glimpse of the Future Some 40,000 persons from the diverse sectors of the plastics industry will be getting a side benefit when they descend on Chicago this week. Resin producers, equipment manufacturers, molders, and users attending the Society of the Plastics Industry's National Plastics Conference and Exposition will see and hear the latest developments affecting their particular professional interests. But they will also be getting a glimpse of what is in store for them as consumers over the next few years. For increasingly the major articles that surround them represent some of the fastest growing markets for plastics. The cars they drive, the furniture in their homes, the major appliances they use, and the packages that hold their purchases—all are consuming plastics at a faster and faster clip. Autos, for example, consumed more than 700 million pounds of plastics in Dashboard panel More plastics in autos
the 1968 model year—an average of 82 pounds per car. This is 25 pounds more than the 57 pounds per car used in 1967 models. And industry forecasts, the society says, point to a 100 pound-per-car average next year. A big jump in plastics consumption by autos came as the materials moved from small interior parts into large exterior moldings. For example, polycarbonate bumper impact bars, glassfilled polypropylene fender liners or filler plates, and more widespread use of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) radiator grilles are a few of the new plastics applications in some 1969 models. The biggest increase in plastics consumption by autos will come when a penetration is made into body panels and assemblies. Uniroyal, for one, thinks it knows how this will come about. Introducing a new plastic panel concept last August (C&EN, Aug. 19, page 15), the company predicted that the next likely departure for plastics from today's type of applications will come with independent assemblies, such as doors, hoods, and deck lids. Further off are total plastic structures, such as a tilt front end, followed by a totally plastic exterior. In furniture, plastics consumption will run more than 500 million pounds this year, SPI predicts. And the society forecasts that this will increase to more than 900 million pounds by 1970. Plastics have been used in furniture for quite some time. Indeed, upholstery materials, foam cushioning, decorative laminates, and injectionmolded parts are among the leading uses of plastics in furniture. But today, molded and cast components are beginning to replace wood in decorative and structural applications, such as chair legs and backs and table pedestals. Manufacturing costs, shortage of skilled craftsmen, and short supply and high costs of good hardwoods are causing the furniture industry to turn to plastics. The biggest boost is currently going to polystyrene. Urethane foam, modified polyesters, and ABS will also benefit. With some variations, the same story holds in appliances and packaging. Makers of major applianceswashers, dryers, dishwashers, air conditioners—continue to steadily increase their consumption of plastics. And packaging, now the second largest U.S. market for plastics (after construction) with 2.5 billion pounds consumed in 1967, has much room left for plastics to grow. Cans, cartons, and corrugated boxes, for example, represent applications as yet little touched by plastics.
NUCLEAR REPROCESSING:
Too Much, Too Soon Nuclear divisions of Allied Chemical and Atlantic Richfield are eyeball to eyeball in South Carolina, and neither side shows signs of blinking first. At stake in this economic confrontation is the spent fuel reprocessing business from the South's fast growing nuclear power industry. Both companies have announced plans to build 5 ton-a-day reprocessing plants in the Palmetto state. That may be exciting news to various chambers of commerce in South Carolina. But two plants? The business simply isn't there. And it's not likely to be at least until the late 1970's. Allied says it plans to begin construction work this year at a site near Aiken, S.C. Based on a five-day work week, the plant is designed to process 1270 metric tons of uranium each year. Arco has unofficially chosen a site in northwest South Carolina near Leeds. Plans call for handling 1500 tons of uranium annually through a six-day work week. Allied would begin handling fuel in 1973, and Arco by late 1974. According to the Atomic Energy Commission, neither company has yet filed preliminary safety analysis reports. (Although Allied's was on the way last week.) So neither aspirant has the official AEC go-ahead to start construction. Allied probably can't begin serious spadework at least until late next year, since AEC usually takes at least six months to process such applications. Arco would appear to have a bladethin edge in this corporate poker game, by virtue of a contract with Duke Power Co. Duke is building a 2523M w ( e ) . three-unit power station at Oconee, S.C, about 50 miles west of Leeds. According to the agreement, Arco will have the rights to reprocess spent fuel from the final number 3 unit, which will start discharging fuel in 1975—not exactly immediately. But the hooker in this deal will be the moves of Babcock and Wilcox, the company building the Duke station. B&W has the reprocessing rights to units 1 and 2 and refuses to indicate whom it favors as the reprocessing subcontractor. (B&W does not itself reprocess fuel and has no plans to.) Spent cores could even be sent to Morris, 111., where General Electric is building a 300 ton-per-year plant, or to West Valley, N.Y., site of Nuclear Fuel Services' 300 ton-per-year plant. But those alternatives are unlikely because of the distance. Another factor is Carolina Power and Light's undisclosed plans for its Harts ville, S.C., station, starting up in 1970. So the race so far, as they say, is a NOV. 11, 1968 C&EN
21
THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
Reprocessors will have overcapacity through 1970's 4000
Metric tons of uranium as 100% U
Spent fuel forecatf UapA
3000
Atlantic WoHfatûGo. 1500 Metrictonsper feat el uranium
2000 Reprocotëtng plant
design capacity *\ Allied Chemical Corp.
1270 Metric torn pat fear of uranium
1000
General Electric Co. 300 Metric torn per year ot uranium ν Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. 300 Metric tons per year ot uranium 1968'"
1971
Ï974
1977
1980
Source: Atomic Energy Commission
real cliff-hanger. The South is indeed surging in the nuclear power field and should account for about a third of the nation's 150,000-Mw(e). nuclear power capacity by 1980. Present or proposed are three units in Alabama, one in Arkansas, four in Florida, one in Georgia, three in North Carolina, four in South Carolina, two in Tennessee, and three in Virginia. Not until about 1980 would the national discharge of spent fuel necessitate a fourth commercial reprocessing plant. Until then, therefore, South Carolina, or for that matter, the whole wide South, just doesn't seem big enough for both Allied or Arco. The total nuclear reprocessing field might well pay heed to the recent counsel of AEC Chairman Glenn T. Seaborg: "I feel compelled to caution the industry," he said, "that if all these companies build chemical reprocessing plants, on the schedule and of the capacity they have indicated, we will have twice as much capacity in 1975 as will be required for the year 1980. This may be one way to achieve reduced prices for reprocessing but it would not be a very healthy situation in the long term." High noon is approaching in the Carolina Piedmont.
Compressors in Gary, Ind. Overloading human ears 22 C&EN NOV. 11, 1968
INDUSTRIAL NOISE:
Workers Lose Hearing The whining, whirring, grating, and other harsh sounds all too familiar to industrial workers may well be causing them loss of hearing. According to a just-released government report, "Noise—Sound Without Value," noiseinduced hearing loss is becoming a major health hazard in American industry. At least 6 million and perhaps as many as 16 million industrial workers are threatened with degrees of hearing loss from exposure to noise on the job, the report says. Textile, paper, and iron and steel
makers are among the major industries where "significant" noise pollution exists, the report adds. The 56-page report, prepared by a task force of federal agency officials under the direction of the Federal Council for Science and Technology, discusses the relation between noise and health. It also reviews existing federal noise-control programs involving research, public education, and setting and enforcing noise standards. The report contains a number of recommendations which allocate responsibilities for controlling noise pollution among the federal agencies. Upon receiving the report last week, President Johnson endorsed these recommendations. He also directed that federal agencies improve coordination among them and among the Federal Government, the private sector, and state and municipal officials. Along these lines, the task force urges the Health, Education, and Welfare Department to carry out research programs to identify effects of noise on man's hearing. The results would be used to develop health criteria for use in setting standards for human exposure to noise. Another recommendation calls for the Labor Department and Interior Department to set up and enforce noise standards in the industrial and commercial areas under their jurisdiction. The government study group says that the sources of "irritating and possibly physically harmful noises" are multiplying. But it is difficult to determine the extent of hearing loss in different jobs, the group notes. This is because, with few exceptions, management "fears that such tests (audiometric studies) might precipitate an avalanche of compensation claims," the report says. And "unions have not pressured for such surveys either."
