US – The milestone unit was produced during the plant’s 25th anniversary. Also this year, Yokohama Salem became a landfill-free operation and received the 2015 Environmental Warrior Award from the Virginia Water Environment Association (VWEA).
Tetsuro Murakami, president of Yokohama Tire Manufacturing Virginia (YTMV), described the milestone unit and the anniversary as “two very significant achievements" for the company. He explained: “The plant helped establish our brand by providing a strategic manufacturing facility in the United States to serve both the OEM and replacement markets. Twenty five years later, the 80 millionth tyre – an AVID Ascend with Yokohama’s signature technology, orange oil – rolled off the line.”
Further to the VWEA environmental award, YTMV has been active in the Forever Forest global initiative by its parent company, The Yokohama Rubber Co. The programme aims to plant approximately 500,000 trees around Yokohama facilities worldwide by 2017; YTMV became the first plant outside Asia to participate, in 2009, and has since planted 11,000 trees in Salem. The facility has been certified by the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System since 2007.