Pictured: Metal chips are collected at GM’s Flint Engine plant and shipped to a supplier that recycles the chips
General Motors has expanded is landfill-free program to 27 newly certified facilities. All of the company’s manufacturing plants in Canada, Mexico and South America now reuse, recycle, or convert to energy all waste from their daily operations. With 142 landfill-free facilities (both manufacturing and non-manufacturing), the company says it has more than any other automaker. “To us, waste is simply a resource out of place,” says John Bradburn, GM’s global waste reduction manager.
General Motors drives its zero mindset by local teams. Employees of local facilities actively look for innovative and sustainable solutions to waste management, including efforts to keep resources within the value chain.
Small changes are having significant impacts for the company. At the Oshawa Assembly Plant and Canadian Technical Center (Oshawa Campus), new waste, compost and recycling container systems in kitchenettes and high-traffic areas are improving recycling efficiencies. Through onsite leadership efforts and employee participation, mixed container recycling has improved from 45% to 80% since 2016. “We don’t see things as they are, but what they could be,” says Bradburn.
In South America, teams find simple solutions for waste reduction in efforts such as repurposing old concrete for use in new walkways at the company’s sites and cleaning instead of disposing of oil-soaked cloths used in the paint processes. General Motor’s São Caetano do Sul plant in Brazil lines waste cans throughout the facility with plastic bags originally used by a local supplier for parts shipment. The project avoids sending nearly 8,000 plastic bags to landfill each year.
Global waste management efforts remain important to the company’s top and bottom lines by delivering efficiencies, generating revenue and helping with cost savings, the company says. The 79 landfill-free manufacturing operations on average reuse, recycle or compost approximately 96% of their waste from daily operations and convert 4% to energy.
A key part of the company’s strategy is to scale impact through collaboration and best practice sharing among its global operations and external mentorship.
In 2011, GM set a goal to operate 150 landfill-free sites by 2020. With its total of 142 landfill-free facilities - 79 of them being manufacturing operations - the company has nearly met its objectives.
The company approaches zero waste systematically. Not only does the company measure and report on the material streams of all operations, but it also measures the financial value of those streams, John Bradburn, GM global manager of waste reduction, told Environmental Leader in 2016. “This directly communicates how each plant is performing to help GM’s bottom line. It also identifies opportunities for continual improvement, provides a place to share of best practices, and create a condition where we can help a local community participate and develop certain technologies that may be missing form their own infrastructure.”
