Green Manufacturing

No matter what kind of product you make, and no matter what kind of raw material you use to make it, you’re going to have waste. And while you can minimize waste with smart people running smart machinery, a percentage of your raw material still winds up on the floor, in the air, or inside the machinery.

For decades, waste was an acceptable factor in the greater equation of production. Collected at the end of the shift or the day, it went out the dumpster, out of sight and out of mind. From there, it went to the community landfill. No problem.

But there were several problems. First, landfills began filing up at an alarming rate. Second, some of the materials being dumped were not good for the environment or the people who lived around the landfills. But what really opened eyes was the fact that the cost of raw materials kept going up, and the cost of hauling and landfilling kept going up, and companies were essentially throwing their raw materials investment away.

Today we fully understand the importance of using tools and machinery that can maximize our investment in materials, and the value in capturing the waste we generate. Technologies prompted by a realization that many waste materials can be moneymakers are helping recoup dollars that might otherwise be lost.