Green Factory?

Well, maybe not "green" in the purest sense, but definitely a step forward:

GM’s Tonawanda (NY) Engine Plant, the world’s largest engine manufacturing facility, has achieved landfill-free status in its manufacturing operations by reducing waste generation, recycling and converting waste to energy.

More than 95% of the waste materials from the plant’s manufacturing operations (23,233 tons annually) are recycled and nearly 5% (or 1,060 tons annually) are converted to energy at waste-to-energy facilities.

The recycled streams from the plant. Scrap metal and swarf (the turnings from metalworking) dominate, accounting for a combined 24.5 million tons of the waste (97.7%).

Originally built in 1937, the 3.1 million square foot plant produced 1.1 million engines in 2005. GM employs approximately 2,500 people at the plant.

The plant is the second GM plant in the US, and one of a very few automotive plants in the world to reach this achievement. The GM Flint Engine South Plant in Flint, Mich., was the first GM plant to achieve zero landfill status in its manufacturing operations in March, 2005.

And I want you to pay special attention to this:

Recycling the 46,260,000 pounds of scrap metal (equivalent to the weight of 13,217 cars), reduced energy consumption by 786,074,232 kwh, according to GM’s calculations, as it takes more energy to make metal from ores than it does from scrap.

One of the most-repeated idiocies I hear over and over is that recycling doesn't really help the environment, because it takes "more energy to recycle than X...", where X might be any alternative, including landfilling the waste.

It's very simple: scrap metal is still far more useful - purer "ores", if you will - then the stuff we dig up. If we didn't recycle, it would have to be dug out of the ground. That's way more energy-intensive than recycled ores. This is why people have been recycling most simple metals for eons.

Recycling: Good for the planet.

But don't forget - it's "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle." Reduce what you use first. Reuse the rest. Recycle the scrap.

Catchy slogans can still be right, after all.