Campbell’s waste recycling rate dropped from 83.1 percent in 2010 to 80.2 percent in 2011. The company attributes the drop in its recycling rate to the closure of its Utrecht, Netherlands, facility. The shuttering eliminated a 100 percent recycled waste stream. Campbell’s is targeting a 95 percent recycle rate by 2020.

The company’s figure for total solid waste generated fell from 383,385 metric tons in 2010 to 301,445 in 2011. The report says this adds up to a 7 percent reduction year-on-year, but Environmental Leader’s calculations put the reduction at a much larger 21 percent reduction.

Campbell’s total tonnage of non-recycled waste fell around 7.5 percent year-on-year, and it disposed of 0.019 metric tons of waste per metric ton of production in 2011, down from 0.022 in 2010.

The company’s packaging goal is to cut 100 million pounds from its products and source 100 percent of its packaging materials from sustainable materials by 2020. In the last three years the company says design improvements have cut 24 million pounds from its packaging. Last year saw the company’s Pepperidge Farm brand redesign its Goldfish and Deli Flats packages and reduce plastic usage by 65 percent. Light-weighting of Campbell’s new V8 PET beverage bottles saved more than 540,000 pounds of plastic in 2011, the report says.

Environmental Leader’s coverage of the company’s 2010 report can be found here.