Originally published August 21 2005
Subaru opens the first waste-free auto plant in North America
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A Subaru factory in Lafayette, Indiana is the first automobile assembly plant in North America to become entirely waste-free, with all their materials being reused or recycled.
Lots of other companies are shipping far less garbage to landfills than they did even a few years ago.
Cascade Engineering, a Grand Rapids, Michigan, plastics manufacturer that makes parts for cars and various plastic containers -- including trash cans -- has cut the amount of trash it sends to landfills from 2,475 tons in 2003 to just over 700 tons this year.
"We've gone from every-other-day pickups to once every couple of weeks," says Kelley Losey, an environmental services manager at the company.
Three of Toyota's manufacturing plants in the United States have reached the 95 percent level, as has Fetzer Vineyards, one of the country's largest winemakers.
In the 1980s and '90s, "even the best companies were only diverting 60 percent or 65 percent of their waste from landfills," says Wayne Rifer, an associate at the nonprofit Zero Waste Alliance in Portland, Oregon.
"In the last five years, we've seen a whole new way of thinking about the problem of waste."
"Anything that's waste is an inefficiency in the process, and inefficiency is lost dollars," says Patricia Calkins, vice president for environment, health and safety at Xerox.
The average cost to dump a ton of garbage in a U.S. landfill jumped from $8 in 1985 to $34 in 1995, according to the National Solid Wastes Management Association.
Landfill costs have climbed only slightly since then, but in parts of the country where land is at a premium, companies can pay far higher rates.
Cutting its waste stream has saved the winemaker an estimated $150,000.
There's also far greater awareness of the risks of dumping garbage.
Much of that awareness has come from the publicity around Superfund sites and industrial landfills gone bad, says David Lear, HP's vice president of corporate, social and environmental responsibility.
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml