Coors Container Company produces aluminum cans for the Coors Brewing Company.  Can manufacture includes the internal coating applied to maintain can integrity, which is applied as a latex-epoxy or water/solvent mixture.  Due to federal legislation, generated waste was drummed and classified as hazardous, due to potential flammability (volatility).

     Coors Environmental Engineering commissioned Phoenix Bio-Systems to investigate the possibility of on-site destruction of the waste.  A pilot system was designed and developed by Phoenix, which proved highly successful.

     Subsequently, a full-scale system was built on Coors existing TSD-RCRA pad for treatment of some 300 to 400 drums per year.  The system includes a 2,000-gallon anaerobic, up-flow fixed-film reactor, a feedstock preparation system, and final effluent holding tanks.  The treatment system operated from 1988 to 1993, at which time it was shut-down since the Coors coating waste was no longer generated.  Effluent from the anaerobic treatment system was kept in holding tanks for final analysis prior to discharge to a general wastewater treatment plant.  Coors has realized significant savings, as well as reduction in potential liability, using on-site bio-treatment of this hazardous waste.