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Jul 6, 2007

"I believe it to be perfectly possible for an individual to adopt the way of life of the future. . . without having to wait for others to do so." --Mahatma Gandhi

Making Cars Not Garbage

Each week, hundreds of new cars roll out of the Subaru factory in Lafayette, Indiana. But for three years what hasn’t come out is -- the trash. When the garbage truck rolls up to the curb in front of your house each week, it hauls away more trash than is generated by the manufacturing processes at the factory. 100 percent of the waste steel, plastic and other materials coming out of the plant is 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 is shipped off to Indianapolis and incinerated to generate electricity. Subaru is not alone. Many other companies are following suit and cutting their waste dramatically.