Manufacturers must reduce their impact on the environment and simultaneously decrease their operational costs, a sometimes-difficult balance. Many manufacturers have worked with EQ’s Total Waste Management program to find efficiencies and solve challenges.
General Motors (GM) manufactured 9.7 million vehicles in 2013. To do so, GM plants process a lot of material and generate some waste. Yet, the company has a zero landfill goal, and it has been working year-over-year to provide waste elimination and recycling options at all manufacturing facilities. EQ has supported this GM initiative at several locations throughout the years, most recently at GM’s 75-year-old Rochester, NY manufacturing plant.
In late 2013, GM’s Rochester, NY plant became its 109th landfill-free operation. The plant makes GM vehicles more environmentally friendly through manufacturing components that increase vehicle fuel efficiency. Now, through collaboration with EQ, it has greened its own operations.
The Rochester plant had some of the most technically-challenged waste streams of any GM facility. EQ audited the facility and planned the material reuse, recycling, and reduction process. Tom Schuck, EQ EVP Field Services says:
“EQ’s Rochester TWM operation serves as an example of how this type of accomplishment is possible when collaboration between various work groups takes place to achieve a common goal. The (EQ) team was instrumental in coordinating many activities and moving the projects forward.”