Mmm, Wind-Power-Produced Chips...

potato chips

McCain Foods is building three 80m-high wind turbines at a plant in England, hoping to produce a significant percent of the factory's power needs. The turbines will cost about $20 million, but will cut the plant's energy costs by about 60%.

They should be operational in November, and will be the tallest land-based turbines in England. Depending on the wind, the turbines will sometimes produce enough power to power the entire plant, even creating some extra to be sold back to the National Grid.

Previous eco-friendly projects by the company (all within the U.K.) include using only U.K. potato chips (to cut down on travel miles), and, at one location, a heat and power facility that runs on bio-gas from a waste waster treatment plant.

McCain is part of Canada's McCain Foods Group, the largest French fry producer in the world--they supply to both Burger King and McDonald's, for a start. So if they would start implementing these programs at more non-U.K. sites, they might have a genuine impact.

Now if only more corporations would voluntarily take steps like these...

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