No genies in these bottles, just the genius of repurposing recycled plastic products.
The water bottles, collected from five of General Motors’ Michigan facilities, are also being turned into air filtration components, used in GM facilities to protect air quality. Given the multi-brand automaker’s drive towards zero waste, all of GM’s global facilities recycle their water bottles. However, the bottles collected at the five locations are now funnelled into its “Do Your Part” project, where 11 businesses collaborate to give them a second life.
GM pursued this project after analysing its impacts from a holistic business case, and demonstrates how a supply chain can become a supply web where business opportunities stem from an original project, furthering the mission and driving more social and economic impact.
Each partner engaged in this initiative brings specific capabilities. Hamtramck Recycling bails the plastic bottles collected from GM’s world headquarters at the Renaissance Center, Warren Technical Center, and Orion Assembly, Flint Tool and Die, and Flint Engine plants. Clean Tech Inc washes the bottles and converts them to flake. Unifi Inc recycles the bottle flake into resin. Palmetto Synthetics processes the resin to create fibres and William T. Burnett & Co processes the fibres into various forms of fleece.
- Rogers Foam Corp die-cuts the fleece and EXO-s attaches it into the nylon cover for the Chevrolet Equinox V6 engine. The part helps further dampen engine noise to deliver a quiet ride. Filtration Services Group works with New Life Center, a nonprofit jobs development and training mission in Flint, to make the panels for the air filtration fleece, which is then sent to 10 GM facilities.
GM is also working with various relevant organisations, such as Schupan Recycling in Flint, to collect additional water bottles to plug into the project.
GM uses recycled content in many of its vehicles. For instance, cardboard from various GM plants is recycled into a sound-dampening material in the Buick Verano headliner; plastic caps and shipping aids from its Fort Wayne facility are mixed with other materials to make radiator shrouds for the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra; and test tyres from Milford Proving Ground are shredded and used in the manufacturing of air and water baffles for a variety of GM cars.
General Motors has 131 landfill-free facilities around the world and recycles the equivalent of 38 million garbage bags of by-products each year.
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