Abstract: For the past three years, the Minnesota Technical Assistance Program (MnTAP) has been working to help Minnesota businesses replace trichloroethylene (TCE) with safer, yet effective alternatives through its TCE Alternatives Project. While there are a variety of alternatives available, replacement is not straightforward, and many of the potential options carry serious health or environmental concerns of their own. With funding from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and US EPA, MnTAP partnered with the Toxic Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and chemical and equipment vendors to perform testing to help companies find and implement the best alternative to meet their needs.
This presentation will include a summary of the TCE Alternatives project, information on Minnesota’s first in the nation TCE ban, alternative cleaners, equipment options, and lessons learned.
Biography: Jane Paulson is a senior engineer with the Minnesota Technical Assistance Program where she has worked on water and VOC reduction projects, and incorporating lean tools with pollution prevention to eliminate waste of all kinds. After earning a BS in Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jane spent 14 years at 3M, where she held positions in quality, development, and manufacturing, including time at 5 different 3M plants, followed by a year as a medical device qualification engineer at Olympus before coming to MnTAP in 2013.
Her favorite parts of working at MnTAP are seeing a variety of manufacturing processes and finding win-win solutions that save companies money while reducing waste and improving environmental performance.
Outside of work she enjoys rock climbing, backpacking, skiing and snowboarding with her husband and two young daughters.