t is well documented that using plastic media blasting (PMB) to strip paint greatly reduces the amount of hazardous waste produced and length of time required by the wet chemical paint stripping method. It has been successfully demonstrated for aircraft renovation by the US Air Force, US Navy, US Army, United Airlines, Boeing Vertol and many others. In April, 1991, The US Air Force adopted a policy to "reduce the use of hazardous materials, toxic substances and the generation of waste wherever possible through reduction and environmentally sound recycling." While PMB represents a substantial improvement, current PMB blasting processes still generate some solid hazardous waste. Disposal costs represent significant liability that accompanies every process generating hazardous wastes. Additionally, a hazardous waste generator can never know what future cost may be incurred for environmental clean-up after disposal practices that were thought to be adequate at the time of the original disposal. An environmentally sound alternative is provided by leasing Solidstrip^® plastic abrasive from Composite Leasing, the original developer of a "Lease Program", perfected at Hill Air Force Base in 1992, and now available to both military and commercial customers.

The objective of the Composite Lease Program is the total elimination of the generation of hazardous waste arising from Plastic Media Blasting operations.

he Composite Lease Program involves delivery of new Solidstrip^® plastic media to the customer for use in their PMB paint stripping processes. After the plastic media has been broken into particles too small for effective coatings removal, the resulting dust product is collected, picked up and transported by Composite Leasing to its manufacturing facility. The dust product, consisting predominately of plastic media containing a small amount of paint, often including heavy metals such as chromium and cadmium, is utilized as an ingredient in a manufacturing process to produce another product. This is accomplished in consort with the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act thereby exempting the dust product from solid waste status. This process has been approved by Federal Offices of the Environmental Protection Agency.