Detroit Diesel practices the ultimate form of recycling

Detroit, MI— Remanufacturing is one of the ways that Detroit Diesel is helping to preserve the world’s environment and natural resources. Detroit Diesel Remanufacturing Corporation’s five North American centers remanufacture everything from complete diesel engines to individual components.

Remanufacturing is considered the ultimate form of recycling. Recycling commonly refers to products that are returned to their original raw material state, removing them from the waste disposal stream by using the raw materials to manufacture new products, such as melting down engine castings and using the metals to make new parts.

Studies have shown that the energy saved each year through global remanufacturing efforts, equals the electricity generated by five nuclear power plants or 10,744,000 barrels of oil.

“Through remanufacturing, Det-roit Diesel avoids placing a significant amount of core material into the nation’s landfills and helps reduce the amount of pollution created by the re-smelting and reprocessing of engine components,” said James Morrow, president of Detroit Diesel Remanufacturing Corporation.

Detroit Diesel’s reliabilt® remanufacturing process was designed to be environmentally friendly. A very specific baking process is utilized to clean the cores. Cores are heated to a temperature that reduces contaminants, such as oil and grease, to a fine powder. The cores are then media-blasted to remove the powder and remaining contaminants. The cleaning process was developed with the intent of utilizing a non-caustic baking process.

All cores coming in for remanufacturing are disassembled by hand. This process makes it much easier to separate like-type materials. Detroit Diesel’s disassembly process eliminates that contamination, creating pure alloys from the parts that end up being scrapped, saving valuable natural resources.