The Kenworth Truck Co. manufacturing plant in Renton, Wash., recently received a 2011 Best Workplace for Recycling and Waste Reduction Award from King County’s Solid Waste Division for Kenworth’s outstanding efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle.
“Kenworth is honored to again receive this significant King County environmental award for the third consecutive year,” says Marilyn Santangelo, Kenworth assistant general manager for operations. “The Kenworth-Renton plant is committed to protect the environment through a comprehensive employee-driven program, which fosters extensive recycling and reduction of waste.”
“Our employees take their daily efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle very seriously, and we thank King County for this special recognition,” says Mike Clark, Kenworth-Renton plant manager.
The Kenworth plant says it has used a Zero Waste to Landfill program to achieve a diversion away from landfills of nearly 80 percent of all materials through the use of recycling bins, returnable shipping containers, reduced packaging material and waste-stream segregation. Kenworth-Renton’s cafeteria uses food waste composting and sends waste to Cedar Grove Composting in Renton for recycling into usable compost.
In addition, Kenworth-Renton recently received a 2010 Gold Award from the King County Industrial Waste Program for compliance with the plant’s industrial wastewater discharge permit and for one year of no wastewater violations of any kind covering discharge, permit, ordinance, reporting, self-monitoring and King County monitoring. The plant now has received the Gold Award for 12 consecutive years.
Kenworth-Renton also previously has received recognition from the National Center of Transit Research for being a best workplace for commuters. The carbon footprint is reduced by a “no idle” policy, which applies to all vehicles on the plant’s campus, ranging from delivery trucks to employee vehicles.
Kenworth’s plants in Renton and Chillicothe, Ohio, both hold the ISO 14001:2004 certification for effective environmental management systems established to help build Class 8 trucks in an environmentally sustainable manner. Kenworth’s medium-duty products are produced at the Paccar manufacturing facility in Ste. Therese, Quebec, which also holds ISO 14001:2004 status.
