Ford Receives Keep America Beautiful's 1998 Vision For America Award
29 September 1998
Ford Motor Company Receives Keep America Beautiful's 1998 Vision For America Award on October 1 for Recycling Initiatives & Environmental Leadership
Ford CEO Trotman, US Steel Pres. Wilhelm and U.S. DOT Secretary Rodney Slater
are featured speakers at October 1 Waldorf-Astoria Award Gala in New York City
STAMFORD, Conn., Sept. 29 -- Ford Motor Company will receive
Keep America Beautiful's 1998 Vision for America Award during an October 1
dinner and program at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. With its Vision
Award, Keep America Beautiful, Inc. (KAB) will recognize Ford for achievements
in recycling and use of recycled-content materials, and for creating new uses
for cast-off and scrap materials.
On behalf of the company and its 360,000 employees, Ford Chairman and CEO
Alex Trotman will accept the KAB Vision Award from U.S. Steel President Paul
Wilhelm. U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater is also
scheduled to speak to an expected audience of 450, including many leaders of
American business and industry.
"Keep America Beautiful's Vision for America Award recognizes outstanding
American corporations for their leadership in advancing environmental, civic
and social stewardship," said KAB President Ray Empson. "Ford Motor Company
embodies the best of these principles."
"At Ford, concern for the environment is a part of everything we do," said
Ford Chairman and CEO Alex Trotman. "We believe that being a good corporate
citizen through our global environmental efforts is the right thing to do and
it makes good business sense."
Since 1991 Ford has taken an aggressive and trend-setting approach to
recycling, by using throw-away materials that were headed for landfills to
create new automotive parts and products equal to or better in quality than
the original. Ford was the first company to issue worldwide automotive
recycling guidelines to its suppliers and engineers, and the company
established recycling teams around the world to address recycling in all its
forms.
Ford's "Carpet to Car Parts" project, launched in 1996, diverts 27 million
square feet of carpets from landfills every year, enough to cover all floors
of the World Trade Center and the U.S. Capitol complex. As a result of this
recycling breakthrough, recovered carpeting is now put through a screening
process, pelletized and combined with virgin resin to make engine air cleaner
housings for nearly 3 million Ford and Lincoln-Mercury vehicles annually.
("Carpet to Car Parts" earned Ford the Society of Plastics Engineers' 1997
Grand Award and Environmental Award.)
Ford operates the only major automotive plant in the world -- the Sheldon
Road plant in Plymouth, Michigan -- that uses at least 25% post-consumer
recycled materials in all the parts it manufactures. (The Sheldon Road plant
produces 24 million plastic parts annually.) Company-wide Ford also uses 50
million recycled soda bottles each year to make grille reinforcements, door
padding and roof liners. Today the Ford cars and trucks produced in the U.S.
and Europe are, on average, 75% recyclable.
Ford and its suppliers also worked for years to develop a large-scale
solution that would remove high volumes of scrap tires from landfills. Ford's
goal was to use recycled-content tires that met or exceeded all federal and
safety standards and were equal to or better than conventional tires in terms
of traction, durability, wear, rolling resistance and handling. In 1996 Ford
became the first automaker to equip a high-volume vehicle with tires made from
recycled content. Today 400,000 recycled-content tires are on Ford's F-series
pickup trucks and an additional 100,000 recycled-content tires are on Ford's
Windstar minivans. Through the 1998 model year a total of more than 1 million
tires with recycled content have been used by Ford.
Ford also uses recycled tires in the manufacture of new brake pedal pads,
air deflectors and splash guards. Tens of thousands of used tires from Ford
vehicles also cushion the feet of Ford plant employees, the result of a new
recycling process that turns old tires into ergonomic floor mats containing up
to 80% post-consumer auto tires.
"When a company like Ford recycles or pioneers the use of recycled
materials the impact is enormous," said KAB President Ray Empson. "Its
cutting-edge initiatives have made Ford the environmental standard bearer for
the worldwide auto industry. And Ford's commitment to finding new and
expanded uses for post-consumer materials extends beyond its own corporate
front doors to include its international network of suppliers."
"We are proud to join Keep America Beautiful in honoring Ford Motor
Company and calling attention to the progress that American business is making
on the important issue of recycling," said Paul J. Wilhelm, President of
U.S. Steel Group, who will present the Vision Award to Alex Trotman. "U.S.
Steel is also proud to be a supplier of quality steel products to Ford, and of
our role in ensuring that steel remains the world's most recycled material."
Other related Ford initiatives include: Ford's "RAT" pack (Recycling
Action Teams); Ford's Life Cycle Assessment research process to study a
product's cradle-to-grave environmental impacts including product use by the
customer and its eventual disposal; Ford's Design for the Environment training
that is available to all Ford engineers worldwide; the many Wildlife-at-Work
facilities at Ford plants; the interactive EarthQuest exhibit for children and
their parents, Ford's educational environmental road show that will have
traveled to 15 cities in 5 years through 1999, and the Henry Ford Conservation
Awards to support initiatives that protect and preserve the environment. Ford
is also the leading producer of AFVs -- alternative fuel vehicles that use
natural gas, electricity, methanol, ethanol or propane -- and manufactured
more than 90% of all AFVs sold in the U.S. in 1997.
Background on KAB: Keep America Beautiful, Inc. is the nation's premier
litter-prevention and community-improvement not-for-profit organization.
Through national education programs and advertising, KAB promotes
environmental stewardship and enables 3 million American volunteers every year
to care for their communities and the environment in partnership with KAB's
500 local, statewide and international affiliate programs.
KAB's famous "Crying Indian" environmental icon debuted on national TV in
1971, won three CLIO Awards and became among the most successful public
service ad campaigns ever produced. On Earth Day 1998, KAB recalled the
"Crying Indian" image from retirement in its new "Back By Popular Neglect"
litter-awareness and prevention PSA. At the same time, KAB and the U.S.
Conference of Mayors formed a strategic alliance -- the "Urban Litter
Partnership" -- to combat litter and its negative impacts on the nation's
largest cities. KAB was founded in 1953 and is supported by 100 leading U.S.
corporations and businesses.