Daily Archives: September 22, 2008

TerraCycle is a great company that makes fertilizer out of, as they call it, “worm poop”.  They were recently at the INC5000 conference encouraging other companies to do similar things.  They package it in recycled containers.  They also have a lot of other cool products made from and packaged in recycled products.  They are one of the first self proclaimed ECO-CAPITALISTS.  Check out their web site and products at http://www.terracycle.com.  They have truly embraced the reuse and recycle concepts of green manufacturing.

Look for ways to use things that will end up in a landfill otherwise.

Brad

http://www.virtexassembly.com

My name is Brad Heath and I am the president of VirTex Assembly Services,  an electronic manufacturing services company in Austin, TX.   I’ve set up this blog to talk about things companies are doing to be more environmentally friendly in manufacturing.  A lot of companies are doing a lot of cool stuff, some of it very minor and some major.  Every bit helps.  

At VirTex, we just went to a four day work week (4 days10 hours per day) at the request of our emplyees.  This allows them to save the gas that they would have spent driving to work the 5th day.  It also allows us to reduce the power usage in air conditioning the manufacturing area and powering up the SMT reflow machines.  I’m not sure how much it will save, but it’s a good first step and the right thing to do. 

A Canadian newspaper even picked up the story and included it in a recent article.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080920.RWORKOUT20/TPStory/Business

We’ll keep looking for new ways to be better corporate citizens.

Brad