Environment

The environmental design of the South Carolina plant is unparalleled in the automotive industry. Even before ground was broken, BMW shifted the plant footprint to preserve the site’s natural wetlands. Wastewater is pretreated to high standards before being discharged to the local municipal treatment plant. Air emissions are reduced through BMW’s use of water-based primer matched to base coat paints.

Recycling programs for solid waste materials also minimize landfill disposal. From aluminum beverage cans to shipping containers for entire transmission assemblies, BMW recycles. BMW and suppliers designed returnable shipping containers, reducing cardboard, wood and other packaging waste by 67 pounds per vehicle. Suppliers to the plant even sign on to the BMW environmental program, making an impact beyond plant grounds.

BMW Manufacturing Co. uses methane gas generated at the Palmetto Landfill near Spartanburg to fuel gas turbines at the factory. To use the gas as energy, a 9.5-mile pipeline was built from the landfill to BMW Manufacturing. BMW's landfill gas-to-energy project provides the plant with more than 63% of the power needed to run the facility.

Recent expansion of BMW's landfill gas initiatives have allowed BMW Manufacturing to become the first automotive company in the world to use "green" energy to fuel its paint shop. The paint shop is now the largest consumer of energy within the factory. The use of methane from the landfill gas project greatly reduces the paint shop's reliance on natural gas and better utilizes the previously untapped methane. This expansion will achieve a CO2 reduction of approximately 17,000 tons per year.

There are numerous benefits to the landfill gas-to-energy project: it lowers regional emissions of greenhouse gases and is innovative by using a waste as a fuel. BMW’s partners in this project are Waste Management Inc., which owns and operates Palmetto Landfill, and Ameresco Inc., which designed, built and operates the pipeline, gas processing and gas compression facilities.