A Higher Purpose for GM Waste

John Bradburn is General Motors’ (GM) manager of waste reduction efforts, an unusual position within the giant automaker that tasks him with finding new ways to use spent industrial materials to benefit the environment. In other words, Bradburn tries to give common manufacturing waste a second and beneficial life instead of just sending it all to the landfill. Things like turning leftover paint into shipping crates, making car parts from oil-soaked booms from the Gulf of Mexico, putting used cardboard into vehicle headliners, and turning tires and plastic packaging waste into vehicle air deflectors.

Every giant manufacturing facility generates waste, but GM hopes to trim its waste output through creative projects that help reduce its overall environmental footprint. Mr. Bradburn works with a large network of suppliers and GM teams to implement the company’s Landfill-Free Initiative, a group of 110 different facilities that try to recycle, reuse or convert their daily waste to energy. Speaking of the initiative, Bradburn said “The first step is to reframe how you think of waste, at GM, we view waste as a resource out of place. When we look at waste streams from our facilities, we don’t ask how do we dispose of this waste, we ask how can we find a better use for it.”

Reducing GM’s overall environmental footprint is a huge job considering the number of GM facilities around the world. Bradburn solicits ideas from GM’s far flung environmental engineers and plant managers in order to share the best practices of the successful ways they have been able to reduce waste in their locales. GM also works with the Suppliers Partnership for the Environment, a group GM helped form, to see that the spent materials used in automobile production have a reduced impact on the environment. In fact, the organization recently presented Bradburn with its inaugural Spirit of Suppliers Partnership Award for his creative leadership in the many different waste projects he has organized. Two examples of his creative projects include industrial buildings built from scraps of shipping pallets and nesting boxes for wild birds made from discarded Chevrolet Volt battery covers. Bradburn believes GM’s goals are best served by projects that result from partnerships with local community organizations and sums up his work saying “We want to help the communities in which we operate as well as the environment. This is a great example of how scrap can be reused for a higher purpose.”