A cut in waste to landfill at Ford’s Van Dyke transmission plant makes it the automaker’s first zero waste facility after workers found a way to keep 10 tons of eight feet long, 350lb fabric coolant filters from being trashed monthly. The plant now diverts 15 tons of waste from landfill each month.

A plant committee worked with the automaker’s powertrain operations and the environmental quality office to develop a way to properly manage the waste filters by finding separate recyclers for the used filters and the materials they contained after use.

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Ford has a five-year plan to reduce waste to landfill 40% – 13.4lb per vehicle by 2016.

The strategy covers all angles from working with global suppliers to use more eco-friendly packaging, to enabling employees to develop ways to help reach the goal. Even kitchen waste is addressed.

There can also be financial benefits: In 2012, Ford generated US$225m in revenue through the recycling of 568,000 tons of scrap metal in the US and Canada alone.

The new strategy builds on the success the company saw between 2007 and 2011, when the amount of waste sent to landfill per vehicle dropped from 37.9 to 22.7lbs – also a 40% reduction. Reductions were accomplished through the launch of new initiatives and programs, such as paint waste recycling at factories in Australia, Thailand, India and Spain.

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Ford plans to continue reducing the amount of waste-to-landfill by emphasising prevention, minimisation, reuse and recycle of waste whenever possible. Specific actions include trying to reduce or eliminate the amount of certain kinds of waste from entering facilities in the first place.