DaimlerChrysler’s manufacturing facility in Toluca, Mexico, home of the new Chrysler PT Cruiser, will achieve another milestone later this year with the opening of a state-of-the-art wastewater recycling facility.

The recycling facility, the most advanced of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, will conserve precious water resources and reduce the potential for pollution by totally recycling all the water used in the plant. Toluca will become the third DaimlerChrysler facility to achieve total water recycling. The first two are the Saltillo Engine Plant and Saltillo Truck Plant that began Total Water Recycle Systems in 1994 and 1995, respectively.

When the new system is launched later in 2000, not one drop of water will be released from the Toluca plant, dramatically reducing the potential for pollution to reach the nearby Lerma River system, the most extensive in Mexico.

In addition, the total reuse of water inside the plant means the facility draws less water from the Toluca region’s dwindling aquifer.

Toluca’s underground aquifer, which supplies water to residents and industry, is dropping at a rate of more than six feet per year. Total recycling ensures that production at the plant will not be limited by the lack of water in the future.

An extensive computer system monitors the wastewater treatment plant and the remote lift stations at the Toluca complex. Workers skilled in hydraulics, mechanics, electronics, computer software, biology, microbiology and chemistry operate the treatment plant 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to insure proper operating procedures and environmental protection.

As a result, DaimlerChrysler’s water quality standards in Toluca are stricter than those set by the State of Mexico and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Toluca facility employs 7,000 workers and includes four separate engine, transmission, stamping and assembly plants.