(FORTUNE Small Business) – When you hear the term "green business," a plastics manufacturer probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind. But then, Harbec Plastics of Ontario, N.Y., is a little unusual. You can see the difference a mile away—just look for the 130-foot-high wind turbine. Owner Bob Bechtold, 56, has created one of the most energy-efficient manufacturing plants in America. He generates as much as 95% of the plant's electricity on-site, uses cogeneration, and drives electric and biodiesel fleet vehicles. In 2002 his green thumb won him a coveted federal Energy Star award.

Bechtold, a passionate environmentalist who has generated electricity for his home with windpower since 1980, founded the profitable $12-million-a-year company—which makes injection-molded plastic parts for the auto, medical, and consumer products industries—in 1977. After spending a decade researching how to use alternative energy at his business, he started out with an $800,000 power plant, made up of 25 microturbines. Fueled by natural gas, it emits one-tenth the carbon dioxide of a diesel generator. Since he began using the power plant in 2001, it has supplied 75% of the more than one million kilowatt hours of electricity that his factory uses annually. In a process called cogeneration, Bechtold also harnesses the heat given off as a byproduct from his power plant, saving him as much as $20,000 a month in air-conditioning and heating costs.

By 2002, Bechtold was ready for phase two: a 250-kilowatt, $400,000 wind turbine from German manufacturer Fuhrlaender. It produces 20% of the plant's energy. He estimates that his projects will pay for themselves in eight years or less. But the green CEO hasn't stopped looking for ways to save energy, from the 55 skylights he installed to cut down on his electric lighting bills to his latest project: recycling scrap plastic into industrial products. "I'm haunted by the thought that the environment is not mine to waste," says the grandfather of three. A notion that all businesses could profit from, in more ways than one.