EPA Recognizes Crown Cork and Seal for its Environmental Leadership

In a ceremony held today in Weirton, W.Va., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized Crown Cork and Seal, a leader in metal packaging technology, for its environmental stewardship in reducing naphthalene and promoting resource conservation principles that will better protect human health and the environment.

“EPA commends Crown Cork and Seal for demonstrating how facilities can make changes in carrying out their work in a more environmentally-protective way,” said Abraham Ferdas, director of the Waste and Chemical Management Division in EPA’s mid-Atlantic region.

EPA’s voluntary National Partnership for Environmental Priorities program (NPEP) challenges businesses and manufacturers to become more environmentally aware and to adopt a resource conservation ethic that results in less waste, increased recycling, and more environmentally-sound products.

In becoming a partner, Crown Cork and Seal has committed to reducing naphalene by 1,809 pounds a year in its metal coating process at the company’s Crown Closures packaging facility where it will substitute a less toxic thinner for the napthalen-based thinner. Napthalene is an EPA NPEP program target chemical for reduction, recycle or elimination.

Also present at the ceremony were Carroll Cather and Terry Polen of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Crown Cork and Seal, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pa., operates in 42 countries, employs more than 24,000 people and have net sales of $6.9 billion.

NPEP is a voluntary program in which private and public organizations work with EPA to reduce the use or release of 31 priority chemicals, including mercury, beyond regulatory requirements. Reducing the use or release of these chemicals will help to better protect human health and the environment, since chemicals like mercury may end up in fish and other aquatic life and transfer up the food chain to humans.