Environmentally friendly factories?

[suzanneschuelke]

Well, I'm something of a skeptic; but I took a tour of the Ford Rouge Plant today (one of the largest industrial plants in the world) and while they haven't figured out perfect solutions they are doing a lot.

1) The 10 acre roof of the big truck plant is covered in sedum - a ground cover. This "green roof" both keeps the inside of the building both warmer and cooler and also assists is the cleansing of rainwater.

2) The big parking lot is porous and the water seeps underground through the proper soils and comes out to the orchard and the ponds.

3) The orchards have about 20,000 honey bees and the community is thriving

4) The fumes from the paint factory are converted into fuel cells for energy. The amount of energy obtained is relatively low (about 20% of the needs of one large building) but still.

There are now birds and wildlife. I was impressed and wondered if anyone knows more about this type of factory environment than I do? I'm sure they still pollute; but it has to help.

This has been an enormous factory complex since 1917 so this wasn't totally a rebuild.

[auntieannie]

well, it HAS to be better than any old building.
I know from experience that many industrial buildings, at least here in the UK, are terribly under insulated.
I am a big fan of doing little things that are possible in our everyday life rather than having big ideas that are never put into place.

Obviously, there is a lot of greenwash. but I do like what you describe above.

[bixaorellana]

This is really interesting. I'd never heard of it before and tried to find more online. The Ford Rouge website is not very good, but I found this video (more in sidebar).

You say in the OP, "I'm sure they still pollute; but [the plant's design] has to help." In the video, what is said about the water run-off doesn't really tell how much good is being done, but more or less that it's not as bad as it could be. I wonder if the state of Michigan has before & after data on that area.

One of my first thoughts on reading about this plant was how the methods could be used in subdivisions. The lawn/fertilizer runoff and the sewage generated by the combined acreage of subdivisions in the US and Canada, for instance, must constitute a major pollutant. I found this about Ford Rouge's green roof, which would indicate we're not going to see any retrofitting in subdivisions any time soon.

Still, what they have done is really impressive, especially considering they might have been able to get away with doing nothing at all. Since they are such a huge employer in that area, no one wants to lose the factory. But there are so many cases of those giant factories damaging the environment and public health around them. This is a peek at how that situation might be turned around.

[suzanneschuelke]

This part of town was incredibly dirty in my childhood (not just the Rouge plant - but also the chemical plants along the water). There is a difference - songbirds along the Rouge River wouldn't have happened then. And yes, Dearborn would not have made Ford do this. Bill Ford actually is something of an environmentalism (although of course Ford making a profit is his number one goal and he says this openly). But I do remain curious about the value of the package. And also - the trees and ponds on the outside and better temperature control on the inside certainly make it a far more pleasant place to work.

[suzanneschuelke]

Bix - bearing in mind that is a tour offered in conjunction with Ford Motor Company (so obviously is going to be biased) - I think you will find a lot more data here. www.thehenryford.org/rouge/leedlivingroof.aspx

Do follow the links so you can find out some of the things they are doing with water.