Filed under: Emerging Technologies, Manufacturing/Plants, GM
The details of exactly how clean car manufacturing facilities are in the U.S. are, to be honest, not entirely clear. Claims of being "landfill free" or "zero waste" seem pretty easy to throw out there, but there is bit of a grey area with these terms since some companies burn some waste to create energy, which doesn't seem to be in the spirit of leaving behind literally no waste.
With that being said, let's look at GM's new announcement that its Fort Wayne Assembly Plant, which is where the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra full-size pickup trucks are built, is the company's "first U.S. landfill-free assembly plant." GM says this designation means that Fort Wayne Assembly "reuse(s), recycle(s) or convert(s) to energy all the waste created in its daily operations." One cool way this happens is that pads that soak up oil and water are not only used multiple times but are, when they just can't do it any more, captain, turned into air deflectors used in the Silverados and Sierras. Packaging materials are recycled into headliners, too.
All told, GM says it has 79 "landfill-free" manufacturing facilities around the world. We'll be more impressed when automakers start touting their "zero virgin products" and "100 percent renewable energy" facilities. The Fort Wayne efforts are steps in the right direction, though, that's for sure.
Continue reading GM gets garbage out of Fort Wayne plant by putting it right back in
GM gets garbage out of Fort Wayne plant by putting it right back in originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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