Boeing test pilots are saving fuel -- and the company money -- through a series of fuel-efficiency measures. On some flight tests, for example, they have reduced the amount of fuel carried on the aircraft. The extra fuel was not needed to successfully complete the mission and was essentially “dead weight.” And a heavier plane burns more fuel.
Boeing teams are cooking up some unique concoctions for some of the company’s environmental cleanup programs, including the use of sugar and sugar syrup to treat organic compounds in groundwater.
Employees at the Renton, Wash., site have reduced hazardous waste oil disposal by about 97 percent since 2007 when environmental leaders there began to look at ways to recycle about 171,500 pounds (77,800 kilograms) of liquid hazardous waste generated each year by machines and vehicles around the jet-making plant.