From a press release from Honda, 10 of the 14 Honda manufacturing plants in North America sent no waste to landfills, while the remaining four achieved a "virtually zero" level. This undertaking has saved 4.4 billion pounds of waste sent to landfills and, while a major initiative for Honda, was achieved with help of Honda associates waste reduction ideas and implementation.
Examples of Honda associates' waste reduction initiatives include:
- Engine plants in Ohio, Alabama and Canada are reusing virtually all leftover sand from aluminum and ferrous metal casting operations. In FY2010, the three plants recycled a total of 9,400 tons of sand, which is used as mulch and landscaping material, and in concrete products.
- No steel scrap from North American manufacturing operations has been going to landfills. In one example of Honda's effort to reduce steel scrap, in FY2009, the Marysville Auto Plant initiated a program to reduce the amount of offal by reducing the size of steel sheets used to stamp new body parts. The program, which significantly reduces the environmental impact of transporting and recycling the steel, is now being adopted by other Honda factories in North America including the Canada, Indiana and East Liberty, Ohio, auto plants, and is being considered by other Honda plants around the world.
- In FY2008, Honda Power Equipment in Swepsonville, N.C., initiated a closed-loop system for recycling aluminum scrap from the machining trimming process, melting the scrap into ingots that are recycled into die-cast operations.
- The East Liberty, Ohio, auto plant built a recycling bin for bolts, other unused fasteners and parts packaging, enabling the factory to recycle more than 22 tons of steel each year
Click
here for the full press release from Honda.
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