Promethean Biofuels, a community-scale biodiesel producer in Temecula, Calif., stood with giants such as Sony and BP Arco at the recent Environmental Excellence Awards Summit in San Diego. The awards were given by the Industrial Environmental Association and co-sponsored by the California Manufacturers & Technology Association and the Chemical Industry Council of California. To qualify for an award, companies must be able to show a program with a measurable benefit to date, and an anticipated future benefit.

This year’s winners and categories are as follows:

Green Chemistry: AMPAC

Water Conservation: BP Arco Refinery

Climate Change: Kyocera Communications Inc.

Air Pollution Control: The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority

Environmental Sustainability: Shaw Diversified Services Inc.

Supporting Livable Communities: Shea Properties and SCS

Technology Innovation: Sony

Recycling and Waste Reduction: Promethean Biofuels

“On behalf of the Industrial Environmental Association I am pleased to announce Promethean Biofuels as the winner of this year's Environmental Excellence Award in the category of Recycling and Waste Reduction,” said Jack Monger, executive director of the IEA. “Promethean Biofuels has proven to be a leader in this category by creating usable energy through their innovative fluid waste disposal method.”

Todd Hill, founder and managing principal of Promethean Biofuels, received the award. “We are honored to receive this award and proudly accept it at a moment when we realize how critical it is to the future of our nation’s energy security and the great state of California’s environmental health,” said Hill when asked about the achievement. “We believe that IEA, CMTA, and CICC have made clear their profound recognition that crucial components of issues that encircle all of us regarding America’s dependence on foreign oil are local, community-based solutions that produce renewable energy and other useful products.”

Using research as well as design and build concepts, Promethean Biofuels has been able to fabricate more than 90 percent of the equipment in their production facility with repurposed materials. “We appreciate the fact that although we are a smaller enterprise than our peers awarded in other categories, Promethean is being recognized as a world-class company innovating world-class solutions.”

Promethean ensures that the quality of its products is consistently above compliance standards. Its production volumes are on track to recycle more than 1 million pounds of liquid waste product before the end of this year. “Our goal is to become a world-class fluid waste recycler,” Hill said, adding that Promethean Biofuels has positioned itself to be a supporter of and participant in a zero-waste environment by creating unique and innovative ways to solve liquid waste disposal problems for the customer.

Promethean takes industrial waste off the hands of its customers, primarily food processors, and develops practical, solution-oriented products—whether it is biodiesel fuel, biomass products for agriculture, or specialty chemicals. “This is an area we are really excelling in,” Hill told Biodiesel Magazine. “We are a nice fit because we can prototype a laboratory approach, and then test it directly here on-site at a production scale.” While many of the companies Promethean Biofuels works with in this manner are undisclosed, Hill said they include the likes of Bumble Bee Foods (tuna producer) and other big-name firms.

Founded in 2007, Promethean Biofuels helps its customers dispose of their waste in a legally compliant manner that the company says would make any green business owner proud. With a mission to become an overall market leader in the fluid waste processing and recycling arena, Promethean Biofuels has been recognized by the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycles) for its waste reduction efforts several times over the past few years. The company also won the 2009, 2010 and 2011 CalRecycles Waste Reduction Award, and it has been named one of the Top 10 Technology Companies in the Inland Empire for the past two years.