Green Initiatives
Roadtrek is proud to be a Certified Green RV manufacturer. Since 2012, we have improved in every aspect of our manufacturing, from materials to process, to help be as sustainable and green as possible. Currently, we have a Bronze rating and are eager to push the boundaries of green initiatives at Roadtrek.
Material Efficiency
To improve our material efficiency, we have recycling set up for all of our aluminum, copper, wood and cardboard products, as well as having all of our plastics reground and reused, or returned to compounders. For our wood scrap, all is ground into sawdust and used by farmers in barns! All of our drums and totes are returned for reuse at a future date to reduce waste. We have made significant strides with changing to a waterborne system for paint and spray adhesives, massively reducing our emissions up to 75% in some cases. This change in waterborne paints also allowed us to reduce our natural gas usage by 40% from previous levels. We also engineered new products to replace or reduce the amount of fibreglass resin we use. That’s a reduction of 83% since 2007.
Electrical Efficiency
For electrical systems, we implemented LED or low wattage lighting in both of our manufacturing facilities, outdoor solar lighting, as well as having LED in some rooms combined with automatic motion light switches in offices and boardrooms. We also introduced soft start technology on all of our paint booth fans to start slow, which reduced energy draws. Our new quartz elements replaced our old electric ones in our vacuum form plastic machines to minimize the use of electricity and control wasted heat. Finally, we moved to glass walls to increase the natural light and reduce the need for power.
Water Efficiency
All of our toilets are low flush, and we treat our pressure test water, and reduced our waste of fresh water by 95%.
Product Efficiency
What good is improving our efficiency in our manufacturing processes if we can’t also improve our products? We have created systems like the Ecotrek lithium batteries, as well as having roof-mounted solar for our units. We have eliminated the use of propane for refrigerators and stoves, as well as introducing engine generators to eliminate our customers’ need for non-pollution controlled secondary generators. We reduced the amount of wood by 50% and started to use aluminum to make cabinet structures, which lowered the weights of our vehicles and made it recyclable. We also managed to create weight reductions by replacing fibreglass with plastic composite. Our spray foam insulation reduces heating and cooling losses and lowering the need for temperature control. All of our new products have dual pane windows as well as having front window insulating screens to improve temperature loss.