DTE Energy receives EPA WasteWise Award for recycling

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has selected DTE Energy to receive the 2008 WasteWise Gold Achievement Award for industrial material recycling. The award recognizes DTE Energy efforts to expand and improve it investment recovery process, to ensure that industrial materials are reused or recycled whenever practical. This innovative, industry-leading program resulted in more than 23 million pounds of material recovered for use in 2007, diverting it from disposal in a landfill.

DTE Energy adopted a new “deconstruction” process in 2007 for removal of unneeded buildings. Under deconstruction, structures are carefully dismantled and the materials are separated for recycling.

The process resulted in reuse and recycling rates of 99.9 and 93 percent of two buildings deconstructed in 2007.

DTE Energy also increased efforts in the recycling of fly ash from its coal-fired power plants. For 2007, the company diverted 269,036,000 lbs. of fly ash from landfills by selling the by-product to be used as an ingredient in concrete.