Honeywell Fire is green from top down

NORTHFORD, Conn.--Encouraged by management here and at the corporate level, Honeywell Fire Systems employees are actively involved in environmentally friendly efforts. "We try to do little things here and there that add up to something big," said Veronica Libby HFS safety and environmental engineer. Libby works here in suburban Connecticut in the 352,000-square-foot HFS building, which is home to the executive offices and manufacturing operations of Gamewell-FCI, Fire-Lite Alarms, Honeywell Power Products, Notifier and Silent Knight. Libby has a ready list of efforts the company is making: a central spot to collect batteries for recycling, replacing all lights in the building with energy efficient bulbs, and recycling used computers and monitors. Recycling keeps dangerous chemicals such as mercury out the ground and piles of junk out of landfills. The mandate to go green comes from HFS management, said Beth Welch, manager of media relations for Gamewell FCI and Fire-Lite. "They challenge the business units to come up with new ways to improve processes and reduce waste," she said. Libby said that by recycling its computer components, the company kept 85,000 pounds of waste computers out of the landfill in 2006. "We do general recycling of cardboard and paper; we recycled 156,000 pounds of cardboard in 2006," she said. HFS creates mounds of scrap metal in its manufacturing process and last year it recycled more than a million pounds. Libby points out that some recycling can have a financial return. "It works out to our benefit because we do get some kind of value from the scrap metal," she said. HFS has improved some of its manufacturing processes as well. For example, it's reduced the amount of liquid flux created by using a new lead solder machine. In addition, to cool off spot welders, HFS created a closed loop system, "so we reuse the same water over and over," Libby said.