Subaru’s Lafayette facility in Indiana has been zero landfill since 2004, making it the first auto assembly plant in the U.S. to reach that milestone. With waste reduction under their belts, the Indiana Subaru folks are sharing their knowledge with anyone who is interested. But they are not stopping there and have now set their sights on new environmental initiatives to reduce the energy the plant uses and the emissions it releases.
“Looking at the life cycle of a vehicle, everyone was looking at sustainability while the vehicle was on the road and how to reuse parts once it retired,” says Tom Easterday, Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. Executive. “But no one was focusing on the first part of the life cycle, looking at what impact it was having on the environment while being built. So we wanted to look into that,” the senior executive vice president continued. “Whether reducing waste or now reducing energy, that’s our focus.”
Subaru’s Lafayette facility first began looking to reduce its waste in 2002, according to Denise Coogan, the environmental partnership manager at Subaru of America. Being a small part of the automotive market at the time and unable to bring a hybrid vehicle to market — which they will finally be releasing in the U.S. this December — the company asked themselves how they could make an environmental impact. After setting a goal to achieve zero landfill within five years, Subaru of Indiana blasted its target out of the water: The plant sent its last piece of trash to the landfill on May 4, 2004, after less than three years.
In roughly 15 years, the company has reduced the waste generated by 52 percent, dropping from more than 450 pounds per car to just about 200 pounds in 2016 — and all the waste that is now produced is either reused or recycled. Less than 5 percent goes to Covanta’s Indianapolis site to be converted from waste to energy, but Subaru hopes to soon have that down to zero, too.
Some changes are as simple as no longer providing or using plastic cutlery in the cafeteria and having specific labeled bins for recycling different types of materials. The facility also has a compost program on site for food waste that allows employees to take home the compost material to use in their gardens.
Read the full story at https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/07/27/indiana-subaru-plant-hasnt-taken-out-trash-14-years-saves-12-million-lafayette-landfill/825735002/.