The Greening of the American Factory
When most people think of factories, the first image that comes to mind is probably a slightly Dickensian one — smoke stacks emitting carbon into the atmosphere, clunking production lines, workers who go about the same repetitive task all day. The idea of a green factory seems like something of an oxymoron: aren’t factories those “dark satanic mills” that William Blake wrote of so despairingly? The truth is much more complicated. While industrial waste continues to be a problem, and factories still struggle to reduce their carbon footprint, steps are being taken within the manufacturing industry to find more sustainable ways of conducting their business. Here are just a few of the ways that American factories are going green. Improving Efficiency Factories often use vast q...