Non-sustainable Practices

All four Riordan Manufacturing plants share similarities regarding processing and production. During the production process molding begins after plastic pallets are heated through a screw barrel and converted into a liquid state. Plastic parts are created by pressure injecting the liquid plastic in to a mold. Once the mold has been filled excess liquid plastic remains on contact points around the mold. The excess plastic has to be trimmed and removed before the final product can be approved for further assembly. The excess trimmings are treated as waste and are disposed of according. This process of disposal is harmful to the environment. The plastic trimmings end up in landfills leaching chemicals into the ground possibly contaminating underground water supplies. Knoblauch (2011), Production of plastics is a major user of fossil fuels resulting in eight percent of world oil production which goes into manufacturing plastics (The environmental toll of plastics ). When petroleum is processed into plastic, it is no longer biodegradable, and as such can clog up landfills indefinitely ("Do Biodegradable Items Really Break Down In Landfills?", 2012). Plastic in any size or form is resilient to the point that buried deep underground cannot keep plastic from contaminating or impacting the environment. Currently, plastic accounts for approximately 10 percent of generated waste, most of which is in landfills (Knoblauch, 2011). Riordan Manufacturing plants currently do not have a process in place that allows for the collection and reuse of plastic purging and clippings. The clippings collected could be transformed into liquid plastic again reused. A danger of heating and liquefying plastic is the pollution that is created and released in the atmosphere. Collection alternatives for plastic scraps generated by manufactures are in