WORCESTER: Part of the Bosch Group, Worcester, has accomplished its environmental commitment by reaching 100% recyclability for all its products, thereby achieving its zero waste to landfill objective.
Worcester implemented a new business system designed to effectively and efficiently recycle all its scrap appliances. The introduction of individual recycle ‘bins’ on its factory floor ensured that each piece of waste from the factory’s scrap boilers were dismantled, broken into the varying different materials and sorted into the appropriate ‘bin’ according to the specific category of waste.
At the start of 2009, a total of 91.6% of Worcester’s Greenstar range of boilers, based on the boiler’s components’ strip down weight, were able to be recycled using this initiative, including the plate heat exchanger, the aluminium heat blocks, copper and wiring. However Worcester’s aim by the end of 2009 was to identify the remaining 8.4% of waste that was still being sent to landfill and to determine alternative ways to improve on this process. As a result, parts were broken down even further, by splitting the outer steel casing from the inner aluminium heat block to release the heat exchanger.
In addition, a partnership was set up with a Swansea-based company which now transforms Worcester’s previously non-recyclable waste, including some plastics, into an eco-friendly concrete replacement, meaning that Worcester’s range of Greenstar gas-fired boilers are now 100% recyclable.
As part of its ‘Carbon Footprint Project’, Worcester’s environmental approach is to cut its CO2 emissions is based on producing minimum carbon from the outset, rather than offsetting it later down the line.
