DETROIT—General Motors is turning its employees’ recycled water bottles into noise-reducing fabric insulation that covers the engine in the Chevrolet Equinox. The bottles—collected from five of its Michigan facilities—are also being turned into air filtration components and insulation for winter coats for the homeless.
CUPERTINO, CA—Apple Inc. has developed a large-scale robotic line to disassemble returned iPhones. The line’s 29 free-standing robotic arms remove SIM card trays, screws, batteries, cameras and other parts for recycling.
HAGERSTOWN, MD—Volvo Group has installed a 5,000-panel solar canopy in the parking lot of its power train assembly plant here. The canopy will produce 1.3 megawatts of electricity for the facility.
WARREN, MI—General Motors is collaborating with DTE Energy to build a new 800-kilowatt solar array at its Warren Transmission plant here. The 2,800 solar panels will generate clean electricity that will go back to the grid.
PRETORIA, South Africa—BMW’s assembly plant here is getting some of its power from cow manure. The company has agreed to a 10-year deal to buy as much as 4.4 megawatts of electricity from a biogas power station about 80 kilometers from the assembly plant. Surrounded by land where approximately 30,000 cattle graze, the power station runs off gas emitted by a fetid mixture of dung and organic waste.
HAGERSTOWN, MD—Volvo Group North America has installed 5,000 solar panels at its power train assembly plant here. The company erected a canopy of solar panels above its parking lot to generate approximately 1.3 megawatts of electricity, enough power for 200 homes.
GOTHENBURG, Sweden—The energy consumption of industrial robots could be cut by up to 40 percent thanks to new motion optimization techniques developed by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.
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