Filed under: Hybrid, Sedan, Plants/Manufacturing, Chevrolet, GM, Electric
Recycled boom material under the hood of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt - Click above for high-res image gallery
There's really no way to positively spin the disaster that took place in the Gulf of Mexico when BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded and leaked untold millions of gallons of oil into the ocean. That said, it seems that General Motors has figured out a way to "creatively recycle" an estimated 100 miles of oil-soaked plastic boom material.
If not recycled, much of this material would likely have ended up in landfills, and we'd much rather see it reused under the hood of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt than buried under the ground to rot way over several lifetimes. Specifically, GM will mold radiator air deflectors from plastic that's made up of 25 percent recycled boom material and 25 percent recycled tires, with the remaining 50 percent "a mixture of post-consumer recycled plastics and other polymers."
Enough of the boom material has apparently been collected to fill GM's needs for these plastic parts over the Volt's entire first year of production, and it's likely that these recycling efforts will continue to other models in the automaker's portfolio. See the recycled boom material used in the Volt in our image gallery below, and check out a video along with the entire press release after the break.
[Source: General Motors]
Continue reading Chevy Volt components to be built from Gulf of Mexico's oil-soaked booms [w/video]
Chevy Volt components to be built from Gulf of Mexico's oil-soaked booms [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 19:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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