My boss was telling about a company he talked to and was pretty impressed with something smart they did. So am I.
This company is a cabinet maker and when making cabinets they would create a lot of waste material. They paid a fortune to have the waste material hauled to the dump each year. In addition, their heating bills (natural gas) were outrageous. To address both of these problems in one fell swoop, here’s what they did. They installed a special machine that processes the waste material into compressed pellets, and they installed a furnace that burns those pellets. Now they provide their own heat year round by burning the waste material from their processes, virtually eliminating their use of natural gas. And in doing so they also vastly reduced the amount of waste that has to go to the dump — and, of course, the cost associated with that.
Now that’s smart, and environmentally responsible — or at least respectable. Very cool.