The company has a total of 33 sites across the continent that concentrate on recycling and reusing of all waste or converting the same to energy day after day. General Motors also has 45 facilities in North America and 22 across Europe that all also landfill free have endeavor to make all its 125 facilities landfill free by the year 2020.
The company is continually in alliance with all facilities and has a well drawn out system in place to get all facilities landfill free. Waste materials from the company plants in Rayong, Thailand and their plant in Talegaon, Maharashtra, India are used as packaging material. Wooden pallets which were once used for packaging has now been replaced by lightweight plastic containers. These not only weigh less and cost less but are reusable. These two plants also ensured a marked reduction is use of wood pallet waste by about 146 tonnes and it is on this success that the same is being extended to the company’s North American plants.
Waste-reduction involves high-tech processes to minimize wastewater treatment sludge, painting or grinding, local sourcing and sanitizing gloves for reuse. Thsi measures have reduced 10 tons waste at the Talegaon plant in a single year. General Motors is committed to reuse and recycling of waste. The companies 17 operations in Korea, 10 in China, 4 in Thailand and 2 in India are all landfill free with more plants to follow the same path in future. The plant in India is used for production of Chevrolet cars.
“Regardless of where our teams are building cars for our customers around the world, we all share a commitment to the environment,” said Tim Lee, GM vice president Global Manufacturing and president of International Operations. “We work with all of our plants to ensure they have a roadmap to get to landfill-free, which is important considering our commitment of 125 landfill-free facilities by 2020.”
“Wood pallets oftentimes aren’t built to be reused after one overseas shipment,” said John Bradburn, GM manager of waste-reduction efforts. “Our most common recycling method is to grind them for mulch, and our South Africa plant is even taking them apart to make furniture. But our teams in Asia employed a more sustainable solution. By using plastic, they cut weight by more than half and we can continue using them after the initial load.”
