Sometimes creating and maintaining a facility with zero landfill waste takes creative thinking and plenty of planning. One of the GM environmental goals for 2020 is to have 150 landfill-free sites around the world. This means a site where products are recycled, reused, or changed into energy. There are already four landfill-free plants in Canada. Two newer ones are the Woodstock facility in Ontario, and the Langley facility in Vancouver.
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Changing Foam Packaging into Shoes
One of the ways that possible waste products are transformed into useful raw material is at the facilities at Toluca, Mexico. The facility collects a lot of foam packaging when parts and materials are delivered. This raw material, that might end up in a dump at other facilities, is collected, processed, and used to produce the soles of shoes.
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Reusing Solvent Rags and Other Renewable Changes
Another change being worked on at the Ellesmere Port facility to it find ways to reuse the rags that wipe up solvent during the car assembly process. Being able to wash or process the rag in some way would allow them to be completely reusable. In addition to being the right thing to do, recycling and reusing materials on a large scale can actually allow the company to be more efficient and make use of all resources.
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