Mack Lehigh Valley honored by Department of Energy for reducing waste

The Mack Trucks plant in Lower Macungie Township was among facilities honored by the U.S. Department of Energy for reducing waste.

The Volvo Group North America, which owns Mack, said it received the DOE’s Better Plants Better Practice Award for preventing and reducing waste at its Lehigh Valley plant and several other of its North American facilities. Volvo Group implemented several initiatives to help the company work toward landfill-free status.

Four of its manufacturing facilities, including Mack Lehigh Valley, are certified as landfill-free, as are two other Pennsylvania facilities — Middletown Remanufacturing in Middletown, near Harrisburg, and the Volvo Construction Equipment facility in Shippensburg, Cumberland County.

“Reducing and eliminating landfill waste is imperative to helping protect our greatest resource – the environment,” said Rick Robinson, Volvo Group North America director of Health, Safety and Environment. “We are pleased that our efforts were recognized by the DOE’s Better Buildings, Better Plants program, and we hope to continue moving toward landfill-free at all of the Volvo Group’s North American facilities.”

In addition to the facilities already certified, the Volvo Group said it has three other sites that are in the 12-month certification process for landfill-free status.

The certification process includes the documentation and mapping of all waste types, implementation of waste reduction, reuse and recycling program and sustaining landfill-free status for a minimum of 12 months. Certified sites must apply to the Volvo Group Environmental Committee for re-certification every three years.