Wired: Low-Waste Factories

According to Dan Orzech at Wired, the Subaru factory in Lafayette, Indiana is the first auto assembly plant in North America to become completely waste-free: "Last year, 100 percent of the waste steel, plastic and other materials coming out of the plant were reused or recycled. Paint sludge that used to be thrown away, for example, is now dried to a powder and shipped to a plastics manufacturer, ending up eventually as parking lot bumpers and guardrails. What can't be reused -- about 3 percent of the plant's trash - is shipped off to Indianapolis and incinerated to generate electricity."

And apparently Subaru is not alone. Numerous other companies are shipping far less garbage to landfills than they did even a few years ago. As Orzech says, going green is good public relations, of course. It can also, however, be good business

"Anything that's waste is an inefficiency in the process, and inefficiency is lost dollars," says Patricia Calkins, vice president for environment, health and safety at Xerox.