Bridgestone Plant Receives First-Ever Zero Waste To Landfill Validation

Bridgestone Tires

by | Jan 10, 2014

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Bridgestone TiresBridgestone Americas’ Wilson, NC passenger and light truck tire manufacturing plant has achieved Underwriters Laboratories’ (UL) landfill waste diversion claim validation for zero waste to landfill.

Zero waste to landfill is the highest claim validation UL gives for landfill waste diversion, which is performed and delivered by UL Environment, a business unit of UL. Bridgestone’s Wilson tire plant is the first facility of any kind to receive this designation.

During the evaluation process, UL verified Wilson’s zero waste to landfill claim with 14 percent waste to energy, determining that a majority of the facility’s waste-to-energy diversion — 11 percent — is the best possible use for that material.

The tire plant’s leadership worked with disposal partner Waste Management Sustainability Services to identify all of the remnant waste materials from manufacturing processes such as whole scrap tires, rubber components and packaging, as well as ancillary support processes such as offices and cafeterias. Together, Bridgestone and Waste Management found other beneficial-use markets for these materials.

Bridgestone’s passenger and light truck tire manufacturing plant in Aiken, SC, achieved zero waste to landfill in December 2012. Since adding a corporate recycling focus in 2006, recycling by the company’s Aiken, SC; Bloomington, Ill.; Des Moines, Iowa; Joliette, Quebec, Canada; LaVergne, Tenn.; Monterrey, Mexico; Warren, Tenn.; and Wilson, NC tire plants has progressed from nearly half of all waste going to landfills to less than 15 percent overall today, the company says.

Last month, General Motors announced that its Renaissance Center now recycles, reuses or converts all its waste to energy, diverting 5 million pounds of trash annually from landfill.

The automaker says the Renaissance Center — a six-tower office complex in Detroit that has its own ZIP code — is the most complex among GM’s 110 landfill-free sites to reach the milestone.

 

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