The two plants have reached their goal of becoming landfill-free by no longer sending any of their waste to a landfill, thereby reducing the amount of rotting garbage that sits and desecrates our soil. The plants have implemented several reduce, reuse, and recycle initiatives to reach their goals.
The plants are now using a process called materials vitrification, whereby much of the plant’s solid waste is superheated until it forms a non-hazardous substance that can be used in construction materials. The plants will also be using solvent recycling, whereby they will capture any solvents that runoff between paint applications and then use those solvents to create a certain type of floor paint.
They are now doing onsite composting so that instead of throwing out all the cafeteria food waste the plants are conserving all that waste to make a compost that is used to fertilize the gardens at the plants. They are also using those scraps for biodigestive wastewater treatment. The cafeteria scraps are used as a food source for bacteria, so that the plant can utilize the earth’s natural bacteria resources for its cleaning necessities instead of the standard array of harsh chemicals. And lastly, the plants will utilize pallet recycling, where they will cut pallets and rework them together with glue to make boards for the homebuilding industry.
This conversion of these two plants will be a great victory for the green initiative. On average, ninety seven percent of the waste materials at these new plants will be recycled. The other three percent doesn’t go in a landfill though! It gets shipped to a facility that can burn that waste for fuel, in an effort to replace fossil fuels. The conversion of these two plants is a part of GM’s global operations commitment. The goal of this commitment was to make half of GM’s one hundred and forty five plants landfill-free, and they have now surpassed that goal. They intend to add ten more plants to the list by the end of 2011, and they aren’t stopping there. They have even spread this effort to some of the company’s non-manufacturing sites, and have reached the landfill-free goal with ten of them. In the course of the year 2010, GM managed to recycle ninety two percent of all its waste in both landfill-free and non-landfill-free plants. We hope this initiative will help us all have a cleaner future.
John Bradburn, manager of the waste-reduction efforts at GM, had this to say: ““We’re able to share knowledge among all of our global facilities to identify the best of the best in innovative recycling. Many significant initiatives – like the vitrification and solvent recycling – are coming from Rosario. They’re setting industrywide benchmarks.”
If you would like to help support GM’s global operations commitment by supporting the company, please visit our contact us page or call 888-306-1908 to find out how we can help you get into a new GM vehicle!