What started as an internal initiative to reduce the amount of waste Sonoco sent to landfills has blossomed into the fastest growing part of the company's recycling business.

Sonoco's recycling division audited 34 North American plants for opportunities to recycle more and improve waste material productivity. It found more than 70,000 tons of additional scrap that can be recycled, most of which was either shipped to company paper mills or sold to outside companies, opening up a revenue stream of $770,000 in 2008, the company said in its 2008 sustainability report published Monday.

Sonoco also identified $230,000 in future yearly savings. The company plans to extend the service to its remaining North American plants.

"This is a service we started internally, but we're now utilizing this for our customers," Roger Schrum, Sonoco's vice president of investor relations and corporate affairs, said in a telephone interview Monday. "Now it's one of the fastest growing parts of the recycling business."

A separate initiative to reduce office waste at the company rolled out across its North American locations in 2008. The pilot program, which took place at its Hartsville, S.C. facility, reclaimed or recycled more than 400 tons of office paper in 2008 and saved more than $90,000 from improved energy efficiency.

The recycling and packaging company founded in 1899 said Monday it also plans to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions generated in its 121 North American manufacturing plants over the next five years.

The company will work toward its goal by focusing on energy use. It will pursue energy efficiency at its uncoated recycled paperboard mills and introduce renewable energy and less carbon-intensive fuels in place of traditional steam production, such as moving some facilities from coal-fired energy to natural gas.

Sonoco is currently in the process of working with Progress Energy Carolinas and Peregrine Energy Corp. to build a $135 million woody biomass-based cogeneration plant at a Sonoco manufacturing campus in Hartsville, S.C. The plant, to be owned and operated by Peregrine, will have the capacity of generating 50 megwatts of energy, which would be sold to Progress Energy. Sonoco will buy the facility's steam to power manufacturing of its recycled paperboard and converted products. The plant should be up and running by 2013, said Schrum, who estimated it might take a year to secure all regulatory approvals for the project. The company is also moving some facilities from coal-fired energy to natural gas.

In 2008, the company's North American plants and mills generated 1.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Year-over-year energy consumption remained flat between 2007 and 2008. The company also reduced production water consumption by 8 percent.

Sonoco operates more than 300 manufacturing plants in 35 countries. It is now working to establish a greenhouse gas baseline at its manufacturing plants outside North America, with an eye toward setting international emissions reduction goals. Establishing the necessary mechanisms to collect this data from its worldwide operations has proved to be one of the biggest challenges facing the company in its efforts to shrink its carbon footprint, Schrum said.

"This was an important step to set some goals for greenhouse gas reductions," he said. "That was something we took very seriously. It was a process where we had to set up the enterprise system and data collections. You have to be able to understand the size of your footprint before you can start reducing it."