62 General Motors Plants Eliminate Waste to Landfills
Think the environment is important? Think auto manufacturers are hopelessly out to lunch? Well the photo above shows aluminum shavings that are collected at a General Motors plant and recycled to make new transmission parts.
Sixty-two per cent of GM plants have achieved “zero landfill” status, according to a release. That means all normal plant waste is reused or recycled. Forty-three per cent of the company’s global operations no longer send production waste to landfills.
The company says that on average, more than 97 percent of waste materials from GM’s zero landfill plants are recycled or reused and about 3 percent is converted to energy at waste-to-energy facilities replacing fossil fuels.
These initiatives will prevent more than three million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emission reductions from entering the atmosphere this year. Some of the materials recycled? More than 650,000 tons of scrap metal, 16,600 tons of wood, 21,600 tons of cardboard, and 3,600 tons of plastic.
More by Michael Banovsky
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