At the Melbourne site in Clayton, the Bosch Group is developing and manufacturing electronic and electro-mechanical products for the automotive industry. The current emphasis of the environmental management is on the reduction of waste volumes by increasing recycling.

Every year a waste management team is screening the waste streams and working on sharpening the employees’ awareness regarding waste prevention and sorting. Due to a variety of initiatives it has become possible in the meantime to feed over 600 tons of metal and over 400 tons of cardboard and paper into recycling.

The recycled cardboard and paper is generated mainly from packaging material from production processes. Initiatives such as returnable packaging are promoted with customers to reduce the amount waste material.

Other waste streams, from the manufacturing of automotive electronics, include the printed circuit boards which are particularly precious for recycling due to their high metal content. In 2004, 34 tons of this material was recycled.

In a study supported by a local government body, EcoRecycle Victoria, Bosch is investigating how material efficiency can be further improved. By analysing specific production processes in detail, with the intention to achieve increased efficiency of all materials used with products.

For 2005, a reduction of wood waste will be pursued. Currently, wood waste makes up 20 percent of the total waste volume. After initiating a service agreement, approximately 400 tons of wood waste shall be fed into recycling.

Recycling the multitude of plastics is considerably more difficult. Here, the emphasis will first of all be on recycling of plastic containers.

For 2005, in combination with the other planned measures, the company strives for an increase of the recycling volume to 78 percent.