P&G Achieves Zero Waste at 45 Sites

by | Apr 2, 2013

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Procter & Gamble today announced that 45 of its facilities have achieved zero manufacturing waste to landfill.

The consumer goods company has set a goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2020.

P&G announced its first zero manufacturing waste to landfill site in Budapest in 2007. Through quality assurance, packaging reduction, compaction and recycling efforts, the company says 99 percent of all materials entering P&G plants leaves as finished product or is recycled, reused or converted to energy. Diverting its waste streams away from landfill has created more than $1 billion in value for the company, P&G says.

In Mexico, for example, paper sludge from a Charmin toilet tissue plant is turned into low-cost roof tiles used to build homes in the local community. At a US Pampers site, scrap from the wipe manufacturing process is converted to upholstery filling, P&G says. And, in the UK, waste created in the production of Gillette shaving foam is composted then used to grow turf for commercial uses.

In addition to its zero waste to landfills goal, P&G has set other environmental targets to achieve by 2020 including: powering its plants with 100 percent renewable energy, using 100 percent renewable materials or recyclate for all its products and packaging and designing products that maximize the conservation of resources.

Last November, P&G committed to use only third-party certified pulp for its tissue-towel, baby care and feminine hygiene products by 2015, as one of several fiber-sourcing goals the company developed with the World Wildlife Fund.

More than half of Unilever’s factories achieved the goal of sending no waste to landfill in 2012, prompting the company to speed up by five years its goal of zero waste to landfill by 2020. By the end of 2015, Unilever’s 252 factories worldwide will not sent any non-hazardous waste to landfill, the company announced in January.

 

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