White Plains Linen, a commercial laundry company with a nearly 75-year history in Westchester County, has consolidated its Peekskill operations in a 100,000-square-foot facility whose energy-conserving design and equipment could be a model for the industry.
A company spokesman said the $6 million project included reconstructing two buildings and building 30,000 square feet of new space at the White Linen plant at 4 John Walsh Boulevard in Peekskill. Design work for the cutting-edge facility began in 2009 with the goal of reducing the industrial laundry service”™s environmental impact.
Company officials in a press release said the new facility will immediately reduce the plant”™s energy usage by 25 percent. By the end of 2013, the company expects to reduce its carbon footprint an additional 70 percent when it converts most of its gas-burning equipment to steam heat. The steam will be purchased from an outside source that converts municipal waste to energy.
White Plains Linen has installed equipment to reclaim heat from waste water. Water usage will be cut up to 60 percent by reusing clean rinse water and collecting and filtering an estimated 2.5 million gallons of rainwater annually. The company has also implemented a complex system of conveyers and monorails to streamline its operations.
“When planning the new facility, our goal was to correct all the inefficiencies of the past and to make our operations sustainable for decades to come,” Leonard Labonia, White Plains Linen vice president of operations, said in a statement. “Our new designs optimize every BTU and gallon of water. Automation and labor savings was the prime motivator for the project but energy costs have always been the wild card.”
The new facility is expected to be in full operation by the end of August. At full capacity, the plant will turn out 1 million pounds of restaurant linens weekly.
