Zero waste

Volvo CE partners with Waste Management to achieve zero waste to landfill

Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) announced its Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, campus has achieved zero landfill status. The North American campus is only the second Volvo CE location worldwide to earn this designation.

The company says that all waste generated is either recycled, composted or converted to electricity. This includes material from day-to-day manufacturing and assembly operations, office activities, preventive and reactive maintenance of equipment and facility systems.

Volvo CE’s Shippensburg campus consists of seven standalone buildings on 192 acres, with a total area of 838,342 feet under roof. The site employs over 800 people.

The journey to zero landfill was a multiyear, multistep process in partnership with Houston-based Waste Management, the site’s waste service provider.

“The Volvo Core Values team has worked closely and earnestly with departments across the Shippensburg site to become a zero-landfill facility," Rich Halter, safety and environmental manager at Volvo CE, says. “Not only are we keeping wastes from entering landfills, but we have also significantly reduced our costs for waste handling.”

The site has progressed its diversion efforts over the last decade. In 2012, office and shop floor areas began single-stream recycling. By the end of 2018, all waste was fully diverted from landfills.

Volvo’s team works closely with Waste Management on devising new methods to reduce waste and cost. Waste fractions can be tracked and generated for review at any time, and all new manufacturing projects undergo a waste evaluation by a Volvo cross-functional team to ensure they meet zero-landfill requirements.