This article looks at the recent development of the GM plant in Fort Wayne to be GM's most recent landfill free plant. This plant becoming landfill free brings GM's landfill free plant count up to seventy nine plants.
GM has recently increased its number of landfill free assembly plants by opening more landfill free plants in Argentina, which was announced several weeks ago. But now GM has finally been able to bring the same landfill free technology to the states by making its Fort Wayne assembly plant landfill free! GMC Sierra trucks are built at the Fort Wayne assembly plant, and GM is excited to bring this great technology to Fort Wayne.
This will be the first landfill free plant in the U.S. and all the waste from the plant will be reused, recycled, or converted to energy. This will be GM’s seventy ninth new landfill free plant. GM has also ensured that many of the operations that bring the supplies to the Fort Wayne assembly plant are also landfill free. The stampings, engines, transmissions, and components come from nine different GM operations that are landfill-free.
“Assembly plants are challenged with a large amount of waste streams and byproducts, from varying types of plastics and metals to expendable packaging and containers,” said John Bradburn, GM manager of waste-reduction efforts. “Fort Wayne has succeeded in finding sustainable options for these materials while working with other GM plants and suppliers to improve its impact from an overall systems perspective.”
The change that allowed Fort Wayne to become a landfill free plant was that they are now using a change in the materials and process used to paint the vehicles in the plant which can now allow them to recycle the processed wastewater treatment sludge. This sludge used to go to a landfill due to regulatory requirements, but now GM can recycle the materials.
“We look at our waste-reduction efforts from a larger perspective…it’s not just about Fort Wayne, it’s about greening the overall footprint, including the supply base,” said Bradburn.
This new plant will also be able to save the company money with its recycling efforts, which in turn saves the customer money! The plant uses closed loop recycling to achieve its recycling goals. This means that many of the waste materials that would otherwise have gone to sit in a landfill are used instead as new car parts by remanufacturing them.
The absorbent pads that the plant uses to soak up excess oil and water from the floor are now being reused and cleaned instead of being thrown away. When they finally have outlived their function after three uses, GM recycles the material into the air deflectors on the Sierra. The air deflectors are also made with some of the recycled packaging plastic. The cardboard packaging that is used in the plant is reused to create the acoustical padding that gives the Buick Verano and Buick LaCrosse their distinctly quiet cabin area.
The new recycling techniques that save the company money have thus far generated more than two million dollars of savings just last year! And the plant isn’t just looking into waste reduction. The Fort Wayne plant is not powered by fossil fuels and instead utilizes the power of methane gas to fuel its plant. It even gets the methane gas from the nearby landfill! And in December GM is planning to install another boiler in the plant that is capable of running off of landfill gas.
The use of landfill methane instead of traditional fossil fuels gives many ecological benefits. The amount of electricity that is used to produce each vehicle at the plant has decreased by thirty six percent since the plant started using landfill methane gas. The plant even regularly tracks their electricity use and review how efficiently the energy is being used on a monthly basis. The plant also recently switched their lighting to fluorescent lights to reduce their energy consumption.
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