Caterpillar U.K. facilities achieve zero waste to landfill

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by Brianna Crandall — January 12, 2011—Caterpillar Inc. recently announced that two of its U.K. facilities achieved zero waste to landfill in 2010. The Caterpillar Remanufacturing and Components Division United Kingdom Hose Assembly (UKHA) plant in Leicester, England and the Caterpillar Logistics Services (Cat Logistics) Desford, England operations have reached 100 percent recycling in their respective facilities.

The Cat Logistics Desford facility, consisting of several buildings housing both warehouse operations and administrative offices, provides a wide range of logistics services to many different customers and distributes materials worldwide. The facility started implementing new processes in March 2009 that quickly improved recycling percentages so that on October 2010, the site was able to record one full year of 100 percent recycling, with cost savings of $183,984.

Features of the award-winning Cat Logistics Desford facility program include:

  • Increasing the segregation of waste/recycling streams from six to 30;
  • Baling/bundling many of the waste streams to increase weight per volume and reduce transportation costs;
  • Introducing smaller desktop bins for office waste; and
  • Increasing knowledge of the recycling industry in order to properly prepare waste to ensure it can be recycled and the best price obtained.

The UKHA facility in Leicester achieved zero landfill by effectively increasing the facility’s recycling rate by an additional 25 to 30 percent from previous years. A $15,562 (9,843) cost savings has been realized since the implementation of the project in September 2009.

Features of the UKHA project include:

  • A total waste management system to maximize revenues generated from recyclables and to start recycling waste rubber hydraulic hoses;
  • A system to ensure UKHA reaches and maintains 100 percent facility recycling; and
  • A simplified and streamlined environmental metrics reporting procedure.