Volvo CE partners with Waste Management to achieve zero waste to landfill

Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) announced its Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, campus has achieved zero landfill status. The North American campus is only the second Volvo CE location worldwide to earn this designation, which is certified by Volvo Group. The first one is in Braas in southern Sweden.

The company says that all waste that is generated is either recycled, composted or converted to electricity. This includes material from day-to-day manufacturing and assembly operations, office activities, preventive and reactive maintenance of equipment and facility systems, and its on-site cafeteria.

Volvo CE’s Shippensburg campus consists of seven standalone buildings on 192 acres, with a total area of 838,342 feet under roof. The site employs over 800 people.

The journey to zero landfill was a multiyear, multistep process in partnership with Houston-based Waste Management, the site’s waste service provider.

“The Volvo Core Values team has worked closely and earnestly with departments across the Shippensburg site to become a zero-landfill facility. This has led to employees making good decisions and doing the right things,” Rich Halter, safety and environmental manager at Volvo CE, says. “Not only are we keeping wastes from entering landfills, but we have also significantly reduced our costs for waste handling.”

In six years, Volvo CE says the site saw its waste handling costs slashed by over 50 percent. In 2019 alone, the site recycled 1,171 tons of cardboard, paper, wood, scrap metals and plastics. These efforts equate to saving:

• 4,248 mature trees or,
• 3,323,689 kWh of electricity, enough power to fulfill the annual electric needs of 318 homes or,
• 3,757 tons of greenhouse gas emissions or,
• 769,300 gallons of water, enough to meet the daily fresh water needs of 10,257 people.

The site has progressed its diversion efforts over the last decade. In 2012, office and shop floor areas began single-stream recycling. By 2016, the site had implemented composting of pre-kitchen waste, wood pallet recycling, plastic foam and rubber scrap recycling, and eliminated a trash compactor whose waste was designated for landfill disposal. In 2017, all buildings and offices transitioned to multi-stream recycling. Landfill waste began being diverted to a waste to energy facility in York, Pennsylvania, where it is incinerated, producing steam that then powers turbines to produce electricity. By the end of 2018, all waste was fully diverted from landfills.

Volvo’s team works closely with Waste Management on devising new methods to smartly reduce waste and cost. Waste fractions can be tracked and generated for review at any time, and all new manufacturing projects undergo a waste evaluation by a Volvo cross-functional team to ensure they meet zero landfill requirements.