ABSTRACT
The United States Air Force operates many facilities which generate hazardous waste. Five of these, called Air Logistics Centers (ALCs), are major depot level repair facilities. They contain all of the necessary industrial equipment and processes required to overhaul and repair the Air Forces aircraft and ground support equipment. Electroplating, painting, depainting, machine shops, and cleaning/degreasing operations are just some of the processes that contribute to the generation of hazardous wastes at these facilities. The electroplating facility at Tinker Air Force Base (AFB) alone covers 40,000 square feet. That shop along with the other equivalently sized industrial shops generate 1.4 million gallons of wastewater per day. Used electroplating baths, spent solvents and paints, and rinse waters from electroplating and other industrial operations contain heavy metals and organics which make those substances hazardous wastes. One of the principal contaminants of the wastewaters from these facilities is chromium, primarily in the hexavalent form. Other metal contaminants include nickel, copper, cadmium, lead, and zinc. Currently these contaminants pose environmental hazards and must be treated as hazardous wastes and the sludge from treatment of these wastes must be disposed of at hazardous waste facilities at significant cost ($300/ton at Tinker AFB).
