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Waste Reduction Success Stories - Manufacturers
More and more businesses are implementing cost saving, environmentally friendly recycling, composting and waste reduction programs. Here are a few manufacturing companies in Cuyahoga County and around the country, who are leading the way.
- EZBrite
- Goodyear
- Sherwin Williams
- Sunny Delight Beverages
- The Taylor Companies
EZBrite toward Zero Waste
Imagine a business with no dumpster for trash at the loading dock. Imagine a process manufacturer with no drums or pallets stacked up outside behind its plant. It must be a small one or two person office, not a manufacturer, right? Wrong. It is EZ Brite Brands, a Westlake, OH manufacturer of over 40 soaps and cleaning products that is fast approaching $1,000,000 in annual sales. In the sustainability community, sometimes we forget how important the reduce and reuse parts of the reduce, reuse, recycle triad. EZ Brite is a shining example of all three.
Seeing is believing. On a recent tour with EZ Brite President and avid green entrepreneur, Ed Aghajanian, the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District witnessed how it works. Wearing a suit and tie, Aghajanian is a radical with a vision. “Why would I waste anything?” he says, “You wouldn’t believe what our commercial neighbors throw out.” Many of the shelves in his plant were put together from left over building materials from a closet installation business next door. He found some virgin polyethylene board stock from a local cutting board manufacturer and used it to build bases for several pieces of mixing equipment and pumps. Blending tanks were bought locally from a company that would have scrapped them. This purchase alone saved EZ Brite $12,000. Aghajanian purchased five gently used high pressure pump transfer hoses originally valued at $450 each for a total of $50. How’s that for reusing!
It certainly helps to have the President pushing your waste reduction efforts. Ed’s commitment is to find a home for all ‘wastes.’ Packing popcorn from incoming shipments is stored and reused. Employee gardeners take home coffee grinds for composting. Office paper and beverage containers are recycled. Leftover box cartons are reused as slip sheets for shipments or donated to a local nonprofit food redistribution operation to be reused for their shipments Steel and poly drums are utilized for shipments to customers, or returned to distributors to be reused or scrapped. All pallets are reused, unless broken in which case they are repaired or sent out to be ground up for mulch. From the extent of EZ Brite’s efficient reuse and lack of waste, you’d think that Ed grew up during the Great Depression, but he’s much younger than that. He just sees how silly and unprofitable our throw away culture has become.
Another advantage of zero waste is that you can’t hide mistakes. EZ Brite does its own R&D work. Without a dumpster, there is no where to hide your production mistakes. But that’s ok because Ed encourages trial and error and finds homes for the mistakes. If a cleaner doesn’t turn out just right, if it is ‘off spec,’ it may be donated to a local food kitchen, or given to a local landscaper who uses it to power wash decks. Says Ed, “the key is to find an alternative use.”
EZ Brite’s commitment to zero waste extends beyond its own manufacturing to the kinds of packaging in which it sells products. All products are sold in recyclable and refillable packaging. Ed says he prefers to sell refills because it builds customer loyalty and reduces waste. All businesses could benefit from EZ Brite’s model money-saving waste elimination, reuse and recycling practices. It is time we all cleaned up our act.
EZ Brite is a zero-waste manufacturer of environmentally friendly specialty soaps and cleaners. The products are made from natural minerals, including clay silicas, limestones, and pumices, natural food-grade salts and citric acids; and natural soaps blended with various vegetable oils, including tree oils, palm and coconut oils. Their products and production methodology has always had a ‘green focus,’ but few consumers cared until recently, says Aghajanian. “Now many are working towards becoming green. We’re thrilled they are catching on. It has always been important to us.” EZ Brite is growing quickly and currently has 11 full time and part time employees. For more information see www.ezbritebrands.com.
(From Inside Business Magazine, August, 2008)
Goodyear
In 2008, Goodyear made headlines by announcing it was reaching its zero-waste-to-landfill goals at 57 or 58 facilities around the globe. “It was a big step,” says Jeff Sussman, environmental team leader for the Akron-based company’s North American tire division. When the goal was first announced internally in July 2006, “we still had millions and millions of pounds of materials that we were landfilling.”
To monitor its waste streams, Goodyear officials videotaped trash as waste-management contractors carried it away. Then, after identifying what was heading off to landfills, the trash was almost eliminated (although some items, such as asbestos and sludge from wastewater-treatment plants, are still being responsibly discarded) by doing everything from replacing paper towels with hand dryers in restrooms to sending substandard tires to concrete manufacturers where they are burned in kilns. These tires, Sussman says, actually burn cleaner than coal in a 3,000 degree cement kiln outfitted with the proper pollution-control devices.
Tires can also be burned to produce energy, known as ‘Tire Derived Fuel’ or ‘TDF.’ According to the EPA, results from a dedicated tires-to-energy (100% TDF) facility indicate that it is possible to have emissions much lower than produced by existing solid-fuel-fired boilers (on a heat input basis), when properly designed and the facility is controlled.
By the end of 2008, all 58 Goodyear facilities will achieve zero waste. Instead of paying money to bury millions of pounds in landfills, Goodyear has found a way to find value from waste.
Sherwin Williams: On the Road to Zero Waste
Zero liquid waste. Zero solid waste. Even zero energy consumption. Are they possible? Are they realistic? Sherwin Williams is trying to figure it out. The Cleveland based manufacturer of paints believes they have an obligation to help minimize and eliminate our impact on the environment, and they are creating measurements, processes and products that make it possible. They call it EcoVision — and it is spreading throughout the company.
In July 2008, Sherwin Williams launched EcoVision, an internal companywide initiative that challenges every employee to look for and implement ways to reduce our impact on the environment. They communicated a clear mission and defined principles related to EcoVision, encouraging every employee to get personally involved in the cause. Already, EcoVision has resulted in several employee-led initiatives, including a new metrics tracking system in manufacturing plants — the EcoMet database.
Sherwin Williams’ tracks progress toward zero with clear and consistent measurements on things that matter most: natural resource usage, energy usage, waste generation and recycling rates.
On a monthly basis, 70 Sherwin-Williams plants, distribution centers and other large facilities compile and enter relevant data into the EcoMet database. These sites represent the primary manufacturing and distribution capability and currently include facilities in 20 countries across the globe, including China, Brazil, England and India. EcoMet data is augmented with information from other databases for the thousands of other smaller sites (e.g., retail stores).
The five major metric categories measured are Production, Energy, Natural Resources, Waste and Recycling. Each of these broad categories contains numerous sub-categories including: electrical use, diesel consumption, water usage, solid waste generation and cost. There are over 120 sub-categories in all. A growing number of Sherwin-Williams facilities are certified to the ISO 14001:2004 standard, including world headquarters in Cleveland.
Sherwin Williams is encouraging painters to minimize their waste with a test market recycling program. What began in Orlando stores is now expanding to the entire state of Florida. Customers receive 25 cents for every five-gallon bucket returned. KB Homes, a home builder and customer of ours, has joined the effort by requiring their contractors to participate.
Drink maker hits zero-waste goal early
From Waste & Recycling News (May 2010)
Juice drink company Sunny Delight Beverages has met its goal of sending zero waste to landfills three years ahead of its target, the company said.
The company had set the goal for its six manufacturing plants to reach zero waste to landfills by 2013. In 2009, plants in Anaheim, Calif.; Littleton, Mass.; and Mataro, Spain, met the goal; plants in South Brunswick, N.J.; and Atlanta, GA., met the goal earlier this year; and in Sherman, Texas, the plant met the goal last week, the company said.
Each production facility generated 1,140 tons of waste annually before the program began, the company said.
In addition to increasing recycling and setting the zero waste-to-landfill goal, the company also began reducing the weight of its bottles, reduced production energy usage and non-production water usage while studying its manufacturing process to find inefficiencies.
“Our plants’ ability to achieve their zero waste to landfill goal years ahead of schedule is a testament to the tenacity of our employees who have embraced sustainability with a passion and made it a way of life,” said Ellen Iobst, chief sustainability officer and senior vice president of manufacturing and technology.
For more information on the company’s environmental initiatives, visit www.sunnyd.com.
Toward Zero Waste in Bedford, Ohio
Since 1960, the amount of waste generated in the United States has nearly tripled. Consequently, our society as a whole must think proactively about reducing our impact on landfills. At its Bedford, Ohio facility, Taylor redirected nearly all of its manufacturing waste away from landfills. Recycling, “upcycling” and composting conserves natural resources, reduces the need for landfilling and prevents pollution caused by the extraction and processing of virgin materials.
With the assistance of recycling consultants, Taylor redirected well over 90% of the waste generated at its Bedford, Ohio facility. All sawdust and wood scraps are composted locally. Leather scraps are sold to an outside vendor where they are “upcycled” to make wallets and purses. All cardboard, post-consumer plastic, paper and aluminum cans are recycled. Even excess COM’s (customers’ own material) are used for inner-backing materials in the production of Taylor seating.
Taylor’s zero waste manufacturing strategy supports all three generally accepted goals of sustainability - economic well being, environmental protection and social well being. Taylor is committed to developing innovative ways to identify, prevent and reduce wastes of all kinds. For more information, please call 1.888.75.TAYLOR or visit their website.
In March 2010, The Taylor Companies was featured in a news story about sustainabilty on WKYC TV-3. See the video here.