Hat's off to GM Rochester for achieving zero waste

Discussion in 'Book Reviews and Useful Articles' started by Doug, Dec 2, 2013.

  1. Doug

    Doug Administrator 2013 Industrial Waste Survey Participant

    The Wall Street Journal did a nice write-up today on the efforts at one of GM's major manufacturing facilities. This article could have been posted in a few different forums on this site. It has interesting info on overall employee involvement, specifics on the cardboard program (and how the same strategy was used for electronics and office paper), and recycling container placement.

    Most interesting (at least to me) is how they overcame the challenge of dealing with oily filter sludge.
    The journey took four years and included seven attempts to recycle a challenging oily filter sludge generated from a machining operation...The solution was to centrifuge the remaining material -- spinning it like a high-speed industrial washing machine. The velocity makes excess oil pass through a filter into a hose. The oil is filtered further to remove air and water, tested, and dumped back into the pit for reuse. The remaining dried filter paper and fine metal particles are converted into energy.

    To our friends at GM...great job and congratulations on a hard-won achievment.