The General Motors Toledo Transmission plant received a national pollution prevention award yesterday from the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable, for its efforts to reduce the size of its footprint here on earth. The Toledo plant is responsible for manufacturing six-speed and eight-speed automatic gearboxes to be used on SUVs, crossovers, light-duty trucks, and cars.
A look inside the GM Toledo plant
©GM
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The plant has had quite the successful year. In just one year, it reduced total energy intensity by 30%. Thirty percent may not sound like much, but it has prevented nearly 40,000 metric tons of carbon from being released. In addition, the plant, which is one of GM’s 111 landfill-free facilities, reduced discharges from wastewater pretreatment by a whopping 60% since 2009.
“This award is a celebration of various plant sustainability initiatives, from landfill-free to our ENERGY STAR Challenge for Industry distinction,” said Joyce Arakelian, a senior environmental engineer at the facility. “Our Drive-to-Zero program helps conserve our resources and enables employees to see the simple and real benefits of energy reduction.”
The GM Toledo plant also installed a 1.8-megawatt rooftop solar array last year to produce a fair amount of energy. Couple that with its use of landfill gas, and that accounts for nearly 20% of the facility’s total energy.
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Photo Source: GM
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