43 manufacturing plants achieve landfill-free status, says GM

Mumbai: General Motors (GM) aims to make majority of its global manufacturing operations landfill-free by the end of 2010.

According to GM, its facilities achieve the landfill-free status when all production waste or garbage is recycled or reused.

As part of the initiative, the company announced that 33 global operations have recently reached landfill-free status, bringing the company's current total number of landfill-free manufacturing operations to 43.

At GM's landfill-free plants, over 96 per cent of waste materials are recycled or reused and more than 3 per cent is converted to energy at waste-to-energy facilities. Eliminating waste to this degree is a company manufacturing priority, says GM.

The landfill-free plants will provide significant environmental benefits as well. As a result of the company's global recycling efforts, recycled metal scrap sales are approaching $1 billion in annual revenue. Additionally, in North America alone, GM will generate about $16 million in revenue from the sale of recycled cardboard, wood, oil, plastic and other recycled materials.

Over 3 million tons of waste materials will be recycled or reused from General Motors plants worldwide this year. An additional 50,000 tons will be converted to energy at waste-to-energy facilities. Some of the materials recycled at GM's zero landfill sites this year include 630,000 tons of scrap metal, 8,000 tons of wood, 7,500 tons of cardboard and 1,200 tons of plastic. These numbers will increase as additional manufacturing facilities reach zero landfill status.

Waste elimination and recycling at GM's landfill-free plants and other facilities will prevent 3.65 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmosphere this year. Additionally, recycling materials to make new products reduces energy use and manufacturing costs, compared to using raw materials.