Thermo King's Galway-based manufacturing facility.
The sustainability push in the Thermo King Galway factory follows the climate commitment made by parent company Ingersoll Rand in September 2014, with a pledge by the business to reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to its operations by approximately 35 percent by 2020.
Thermo King Galway is one of the brand’s most important manufacturing facilities. It currently employs more than 500 people who build a wide range of Thermo King truck and trailer refrigeration units.
Before achieving the zero waste milestone, the facility sent 230 tonnes of waste to landfill every year. Today, everything at the Galway site is recyclable, and recycling waste generated at the production stations, such as metal, plastic, cardboard or wood, is part of standard work at the facility.
Cormac Mac Donncha, operations director at Thermo King, commented: “Measures implemented at Galway have been effective and show that environmental sustainability is the right call for everyone, including our bottom line. ” He continued: “For example, we switched from using wooden pallets to reusable steel pallets for shipping finished product. This keeps pallets out of landfills, avoids the cost of recycling them and saves the facility over one million euros each year.'
Furthermore, the Thermo King Galway facility continues with efforts to further improve the sustainability of its operations.
The most recent improvement is the installation of a rainwater harvesting facility to collect rainwater from the building’s 200,000 square foot roof. The rainwater is used for toilet flushing and reduces the facility’s water usage by 50,000 litres (13,200 gallons) per month.
Mr Mac Donncha concluded: “The work doesn’t stop just because we’ve reached our zero waste to landfill goal. This is an ongoing process. We continue to look for alternative recycling methods and opportunities to further reduce our impact on the environment.”