MACI to invest $1M to reduce emissions

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
By Tarryl Jackson
Jackson Citizen Patriot

A new $1 million facility upgrade at Michigan Automotive Compressor, Inc., will allow the manufacturer to be more environmentally friendly, spokeswoman Cheryl Norey said.

The company, 2400 N. Dearing Road, announced today it has purchased a regenerative thermal oxidizer, a 99-percent efficient unit that burns volatile organic compounds that come off adhesives, Norey said.

The new processes and the oxidizer represent a 500-percent decrease in emissions over previous production lines.

‘It burns so efficiently and it reduces our emissions into the environment,’ Norey said. ‘That is a priority to the company.’

The purchase serves new hub lines being installed as part of a $130 million expansion.

In November 2010, MACI announced its plans to invest about $72 million during the next two years to retool virtually all of its production lines. The company has since adjusted that figure to $130 million because of added equipment to the plan and the Japanese yen exchange rate, Norey said.

The company makes a fixed-type compressor, and the new lines will allow it to also make a variable-type compressor that customers are requesting because they are lighter and more efficient.

‘The type of compressor we will be making is the compressor of the future,’ Norey said.