A General Motors plant in Rochester has achieved a milestone. It has to do with the amount of waste produced at that Lexington Avenue facility.
The 75 year old facility has just become the latest GM plant that is no longer sending any waste material directly to landfills. It's the 109th GM plant to have that distinction, and the process involves separating the mixture of oil, metal and filter paper produced by a machine that cuts metal. The oil is filtered for re-use, and the sludge will be turned into energy.
Plant manager Neal Evans says employment at the plant has grown over the last couple of years, and there are now about 11-hundred people working there.
"We're providing the fuel systems and manifolds for the new GM pickups and soon to be the new GM large SUV's. In doing that, in bringing those new jobs and that new investment here, we created some waste streams that we now have to deal with."
Evans says the GM plant in Rochester has taken other steps in recent years to become more environmentally friendly including changing over to high efficiency lighting.
