CHICAGO, Nov. 29: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 today presented an award to Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana Inc (TMMI) for voluntarily eliminating 1.7 million pounds a year of hazardous waste from its manufacturing process. TMMI joined EPA's National Partnership for Environmental Priorities Program in April of 2004. Since then, TMMI identified its purge solvent and fuel tank primer as two areas where waste could be minimized". "Following some experimentation and innovation, TMMI was eventually able to reduce its purge solvent waste by more than half -- from 6.60 to 3.02 pounds per vehicle. This is an annual reduction of over 1.3 million pounds of hazardous waste. TMMI was also able to eliminate its fuel tank primer process resulting in a 400,000 pound annual reduction in barium...EPA's goal is to work with industry and the public to reduce the presence of the 30 priority chemicals in hazardous waste by 50 percent before the end of this year, compared with amounts generated in 1991". http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/minimize/latestnews.htm
As pointed out by Amory Lovins, et al., in "Factor Four," if you want to double your profit, then double your efficiency. When will Detroit (Ford, GMC) begin to pay attention?
