Saratoga Horseworks green initiative:

 

Started in 2003 this on going program has included steps to reduce material going into the waste stream, reduce energy consumption, and water use.  Applying a simple "common sense" approach to what we have decided to do so far have resulted in big improvements in all the areas we have addressed.

 

Natural gas:

 

Used strictly for heating our building we installed new high efficiency (96%) heating units replacing all of the former HVAC units. This step alone reduced the amount of gas we consumed in an average winter by nearly 50%.

 

Reinsulating the roof of our building reduced the amount of gas we consume by an additional 25%. This step also eliminated the need to cool the manufacturing space.

 

Electricity:

 

Used for lighting, powering all of our equipment, cooling of office space, etc..

 

Replaced all of the T12 fluorescent lighting in the building with high output T8 fixtures and lights. Done recently our improvement is yet to be measured but forecasts place the reduction of electricity use for lighting at 26% reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 15,000 pounds per year. All of the old lights, ballasts and fixtures are being sent to a recycling center rather than a land fill.

 

Replacing all of the incandescent task lighting at sewing machines with high output LED lighting. These new lights produce four times the number lumens using 20% of the power of the former lights and have a life expectancy of 60,000 hours compared to 2000 hours.

 

Restrooms have been fitted with motion detectors to control the on time of the lights in those rooms.

 

Water:

 

We do not use water in any of our manufacturing processes only in rest rooms, lunch room, and a lab.

 

Installed high efficiency commodes in rest rooms reducing the amount of fresh water used per flush by more than 50%.

 

Waste stream:

 

Scrap fabric from the cutting of the goods to make our products has be controlled digitally since 2003 and at that time we reduced the amount of goods going into a dumpster by 15%. Further improvements in this area have resulted in an additional 4%. We also have a few products that we use recovered cutting room scrap in the final product. The fill in our dog beds is shredded Primaloft waste from our winter horse blankets and a new dog toy will be stuffed with shredded foam waste. We are continually looking for ways to expand on this effort and welcome ideas from our customers and partners. This effort alone has reduced the amount of trash going to landfills from an average 20 yards per month to 14 yards and we have the trash hauler here biweekly rather than weekly reducing the fuel required to haul our trash.

 

Recently we have set up a return program with one of our material suppliers that is able to recycle our urethane cutting scrap into our next lot of incoming raw material.

 

We have been recycling office paper and will be installing an all paper products recycling dumpster in the spring of 2011. We anticipate this will reduce our trash haul away an additional 2 yards per month.