P&G Touts First Zero-Waste Facility in North America

by | Dec 14, 2010

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Auburn, Maine, is the site of the Procter & Gamble Company’s first North American “zero waste to landfill” manufacturing plant. The feminine care facility is P&G’s ninth facility worldwide to be recognized for the milestone.

The P&G Global Asset Recovery Purchases (GARP) team worked with employees and suppliers to implement a process that uses 100 percent of its waste by finding external partners that can turn waste and non-performing inventory into something useful.  More than 60 percent is recycled or reused, while the remainder is converted to energy.

The GARP team connected the plant with a site solution provider, who helped sort all recyclable materials and convert existing non-recyclable materials to energy through incineration. The electricity from incineration is used by the incineration facility and the excess is sold to the local power company.  The GARP team says it has diverted tens of thousands of tons from landfills while delivering tens of millions of dollars in cost recovery to the company in the past year alone.

Other P&G sites that have achieved this status include the Fabric and Home Care site in Belgium, Beauty & Grooming site in the United Kingdom, and Feminine Care sites in Hungary and Italy.

The company has a stated goal to achieve less than 0.5 percent disposed manufacturing waste by 2020, as part of its long-term environmental plan of zero manufacturing waste globally going to landfills.

P&G is not alone in stating strong waste elimination goals; other companies include Albertsons stores in Santa Barbara, Aveedo, and UK retailer Marks & Spencer.

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