"Turtle Glass"

Development along the Florida coastline requires a special consideration when designing and constructing a building: the safety of indigenous marine turtle hatchlings. It has been discovered that light shining brightly from buildings within 1,000 feet of the seashore attracts marine turtle hatchlings away from their natural environment at sea.

Due to the phenomena, the Florida Model Lighting Ordinance for Marine Turtle Protection requires architectural glass to transmit no more than 45 percent of the light from inside the coastal buildings. Originally, Versalux™ Blue 2000 was intended to transmit more than 45 percent of interior light. But, research indicated that a darker blue glass would not only better serve environmental needs, it would be more attractive. The resulting Versalux Blue 2000, by transmitting only 42 percent of light, complies with the coastal lighting code and is presently specified for numerous Gulf Coast buildings. Since the introduction of Versalux Blue 2000, additional products have been developed by Zeledyne Glass Operations that comply with the ordinance as shown here.

Environmentally Friendly Glass Manufacturing

Score another major success for Zeledyne Glass Operations' Ed Boulos and Jim Jones. The duo has formulated colored glass that is friendly to the environment by reducing the amount of undesirable nitrogen oxide (NOx) furnace emissions released into the atmosphere.

The mission of Boulos and Jones at Glass Operations has long involved formulating new combinations of colored architectural and automotive glass. The fruits of their innovative work have resulted in the production of hundreds of millions of square feet of environmentally friendly Zeledyne colored glass for both the architectural and automotive markets.

Boulos and Jones have been ringing up patent awards for Zeledyne since 1992. The two share 13 patents - while Boulos has a grand total of 26 patent awards. In addition, Boulos and Jones were Henry Ford Technology Award recipients in 1999. Boulos shared two more Henry Ford Technology Awards in 1989 and 1993 with other glass inventors.

And the two Zeledyne inventors have not missed a beat as they continue to add to their glass patent portfolio with their latest colored glass breakthrough. "This new technology involves eliminating sodium nitrate - a major component in all colored glass compositions and adding manganese oxide," Boulos says. "Sodium nitrate helps retain low melting selenium in the glass. This, in turn, causes the generation of undesirable nitrogen oxide emissions. Our discovery -- substituting manganese oxide -- has retained the expensive selenium, made the glass more resistant to the formation of nickel sulfide stone defects, and reduced the NOx emissions," Boulos says.

And the good news continues for Glass Operations facilities. The NOx Free Glass Compositions technology has been transferred to all three Zeledyne glass furnaces.

The result is clearly good for the environment. The patented technology establishes Zeledyne Glass Operations as the global leader in eliminating the NOx generating raw material from entering the glass batch formula. Boulos says, "We're proud of this major Zeledyne contribution to the environment and we expect other glass companies to join our effort to eliminate undesirable NOx emissions."

Tulsa Plant Goes Wild
April 2002

To commemorate Earth Day in late April, the Wildlife at Work Committee at Zeledyne's Tulsa Glass Plant (in Tulsa, OK., USA) scheduled a workday on the plant grounds to complete the first phase of their Wildlife at Work project. The group removed several dead trees, which were then placed in the pond as basking logs for turtles. In a nearby area, the team planted various native grasses and flowers to attract butterflies. More than two-dozen people took part in the project.

The committee has been working with the Wildlife Habitat Council, Tulsa Zoo, state and federal wildlife personnel, suppliers and local schools to develop the area. The workday was a continuation of the committee's earlier efforts, which included plant volunteers conducting a plant and wildlife inventory to determine the current state of the area. Periodic inventories will be conducted to monitor changes.

Tulsa's wildlife habitat project also features an observation path around the pond, as well as a wooden platform stretching out into a storm water retention pond at the facility. The platform will facilitate groups or individuals who want to learn about aquatic wildlife. Local Boy Scouts helped out by building observation blinds for close-up habitat viewing. In conjunction with local school systems, studies of the pond habitat can be incorporated into school curriculums.