Ford Motor Company
Sector: Other
Equipment: A1200 Rocket Composter
The backstory
One of the most iconic automotive brands, Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903 and has its headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.
Operated by Ford of Britain – a subsidiary of Ford Motor Group – the global firm’s manufacturing plant is located in Dagenham, East London. The 1.6-million-sqm site produces diesel engines for its European market and employs approximately 4,000 staff.
Across the board, the business places a big focus on its sustainability strategy and ways to increase its green credentials – and it needed some expertise as far as its food waste was concerned.
The challenge
The Dagenham site generates an average of 50 tonnes of garden, wood, and canteen food waste every year, and previously relied on paying an external party for waste collection.
The environmental compliance team sought a food waste management model that was more circular and sustainable, and would enable them to treat the material at source – closing the loop, saving thousands of pounds in off-site disposal costs, reducing their carbon footprint, and creating more jobs in the process, too.
As the manufacturing premises are large and surrounded by a lot of vegetation and multiple greenhouses, the team also wanted to promote ecological growth and encourage employees to have their allotment on site.
The solution
In order to help the automotive giant employ a sustainable food waste recycling solution, we recommended our A1200 Rocket Composter – an in-vessel composting machine that can process up to 650 litres of food waste per day.
The green waste is collected by Ford’s gardening staff, who then take it for processing through an industrial shredder. This reduces the bulk of the material, so it can be fed into the resident composter.
After 14 days of aeration within a warm, enclosed environment, the automotive factory has a nutrient-rich compost resource which is then used for the cultivation of its gardens.
An excellent circular model, which the Tidy Planet team is really proud to be a part of!