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Kraft reduces net waste 30%, exceeding goals

Nine Kraft Foods’ facilities in North America send zero waste to landfills, while other plants report significant savings as well.

Kraft_employee
Kraft_employee

Over the past four years, Kraft Foods employees have reduced net waste from manufacturing plants by 30% from 2005 levels, exceeding a goal of a 15% reduction by 2011. Employees are constantly raising the bar—improving efficiency and changing behavior, business practices, and culture—and creating new partnerships to turn waste into something of value, the company relates.

“Employees took our aggressive waste reduction goal and ran with it,” says Steve Yucknut, vice president, Sustainability. “Not only did they meet our goal two years early, they simply crushed it by doubling our performance with a 30-percent reduction. Their enthusiasm has made a huge impact. In fact, we now recycle or reuse 90 percent of our manufacturing waste.”

For Kraft Foods, manufacturing accounts for the vast majority of its solid waste output, so its plants are a natural place to take action. In 2007, the company launched a program with the global packaging and recycling company Sonoco to substantially reduce waste in plants. The ultimate objective: send zero waste to landfills.

Today, nine Kraft Foods facilities have achieved zero-waste-to-landfill status: three Canadian plants (Mississauga, Oakville, and Scarborough, Ontario); five U.S. plants (New Ulm, MN; Fair Lawn, NJ; Philadelphia and Allentown, PA; and Suffolk, VA); and a U.S. distribution center (Bethlehem, PA). In Europe, most of the company’s plants are essentially net waste-free, and elsewhere, many plants have made significant reductions through partnerships to put waste to work.

Among some of Kraft’s success stories are the following:

• Kraft Foods’ Allentown plant has been on a journey of zero-waste-to-landfill for several years. Employees created a campaign to focus colleagues on a zero-waste goal, which they achieved earlier this year. The plant has reduced its trash pickup schedule 84%, from 328 times/year to just 52 through recycling, reuse, and raising awareness.

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