The Kenworth Truck Co. assembly plant in Renton, Wash., recently received a 2012 Best Workplace for Waste Prevention and Recycling Award from the King County (Wash.) Solid Waste Division for its efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle.
“The Kenworth-Renton plant fosters extensive waste prevention and recycling through an employee-driven comprehensive program,” said Daryl Simon, Kenworth-Renton plant manager. “This involves a concerted effort by our employees to reduce, reuse and recycle on a daily basis. We thank King County for this special recognition.”
To help divert materials from landfills, the Renton plant’s Zero Waste to Landfill initiative features recycling bins strategically placed on the plant floor to aid the recycling of metal, plastic, wood, cardboard, batteries, light bulbs, E-waste and paper. Returnable shipping containers, reduced packaging material and waste-stream segregation are part of the program.
Kenworth-Renton’s cafeteria also uses food waste composting and sends waste to Cedar Grove Composting in Renton for recycling into usable compost. The development of an energy management system also helps minimize impact on the environment.
In addition to its latest award, Kenworth-Renton received a 2011 Gold Award from the King County Industrial Waste Program earlier this year for compliance with the plant’s industrial wastewater discharge permit, and recognizes the plant 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 13 consecutive years.
Kenworth’s plants in Renton, Wash., 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.
