Environmental Progress - Winter 2000

Environmental Management:
A New Perspective

Navistar International Transportation Corporation

Melrose Park

At Navistar, “We would encourage companies to go beyond compliance with environmental regulations, and consider pollution prevention opportunities as a way to save money and reduce the amount of waste they generate, and to share that information with their employees and surrounding communities,” says Jerry Mittlestaedt, environmental manager for Navistar. “These things just make good business sense,” says Mittlestaedt.

He cites some examples from Navistar’s experience:

• Navistar generated zero pounds of hazardous waste in 1998. An impressive accomplishment, given that the Melrose Park Plant produces 67,000 diesel truck engines a year.
• In November 1999, the facility received its ISO 14001 certification, making Navistar the first diesel engine manufacturer in North America to receive certification.
• The Melrose Park plant is one of the longest running recipients of the Illinois Governor’s Pollution Prevention Award since the program began in 1986.(For seven years, including1999, Navistar International’s plant in Melrose Park has won the Illinois Governor’s Pollution Prevention Award).
• The firm has also earned pollution prevention and recycling awards from the Illinois EPA, Metropolitan Sanitary Water Reclamation District, and the Cook County Solid Waste Agency.

Navistar has also participated in Illinois EPA’s Graduate Internship Program. “We have had two P2 interns, one in 1994 and one in 1999. On both occasions we had a multitude of successes in terms of P2 and dollars saved. A real win-win between government and industry,” says Mittlestaedt.

The benefits of last year’s internship program include:

• A new parts cleaning solvent tank with self-distilling features replaced the old system, to save approximately $64,000 a year
• The robotic painting process was reprogrammed to reduce over- spraying and reduce VOC emissions by 15 percent, for annual savings of $25,000
• Shutting down one of its four boilers for three months during the summer, to generate future savings of $75,000 yearly.

In part of the company’s ISO 14001 certification, Navistar developed and distributed to all employees a pocket-sized booklet explaining the company’s environmental policy. Titled “The ISO 14001 Passport,” it spells out how Navistar interacts with the environment and what is expected of its employees.

The ISO 14001 Passport spells out environmental protection responsibilities of Navistar employees. All  employees receive one.