Browse
Engage
Research
Procter & Gamble has announced its first zero-waste-to-landfill manufacturing plant in North America in the latest move towards its goal of becoming a zero-waste company.
The facility, based in Auburn, Maine, will reuse all of its waste, with 60 percent or more being recycled, and the remainder used to create energy.
The company has already achieved zero-waste status for eight manufacturing facilities in regions, including Belgium, the U.K., Hungary and Italy, but the Maine plant represents the first U.S. facility to embrace the model.
Sectors covered by Procter & Gamble's zero-waste facilities include fabric and home care, beauty and grooming, and feminine care.
The North American facility, which deals in feminine care products, was connected to an external solutions provider that provides an incineration facility for non-recyclable materials, which produces electricity that is sold to the local power company.
The company also sorts all recyclable materials and ensures they are recycled safely, Procter & Gamble explained.
The company said it wants to extend its zero-waste-to-landfill program globally, and is aiming for less than 0.5 percent of disposed manufacturing waste within 10 years.
Other sustainability goals adopted by the conglomerate include using 100 percent renewable or recycled materials or products, and powering its plants with 100 percent renewable energy. Meanwhile, composting is to join recycling and waste-to-energy as a means of waste disposal at a number of facilities.
Procter & Gamble is currently engaged in a race with arch rival Unilever to establish itself as one of the world's leading green companies, with both firms recently releasing ambitious new environmental targets. For example, Unilever announced last month that it will aim to halve its environmental impact by 2020.
However, while Procter & Gamble's new facility was welcomed, environmental groups have this week criticized the lack of progress towards a zero-waste policy at the UN's COP16 talks in Cancun this month.
Brian Kilgore, managing director of Lifetime Recycling Village, argued that progress thus far had been disappointing. "We only need to look at the growing problem of waste management in many of the world's most developed countries to see that this is an urgent issue that we need to face up to," he warned.
Lifetime Recycling Village is currently crafting proposals for a closed-loop renewable energy facility in West Scotland that will recycle and remanufacture 1.5 million tonnes of mixed waste each year.
This article originally appeared at BusinessGreen.com and is reprinted with permission.
Bravo to P&G for this kind of
Bravo to P&G for this kind of important effort. However, even such an important concrete step and investment raises questions about what is "sustainability" really? Zero-waste is crucial and must be taken seriously by business. On the other hand, companies like P&G and Unilever are major actors (as are all major corporations) in perpetuating a culture of consumerism that is clearly NOT sustainable for our planet.
I think it's important to keep that issue is the foreground. It speaks to the distinctions Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky make about the difference between technical and adaptive challenges. We can address sustainability as a technical challenge (we can create/use technologies to reduce waste/environmental footprint), but if we don't also address the adaptive side (what are the culture and values required), the change is not complete.
Don't get me wrong. I support the great investment and efforts companies like P&G are making. But, I also don't want to see us seduced into thinking that we all don't have to do the serious work of challenging the paradigms of consumerism perpetuate our situation. And, that to a large degree our economy DEPENDS on that level of consumerism. What might major corporate actors do in beginning to address this kind of systemic issue as well?
Manufacturing products dont
Manufacturing products dont usually produce much waste. Its the manufactured products ending up as waste at the end of their life,being the bigger problem....as these make up most of the landfills. These products should be reused or recycled or reduced by the companies and the society in general.
This is a good start for P&G.
This is a good start for P&G.
As consumers, don't forget the post-consumer landfill P&G products create AFTER USE.
I recently uncovered in a Facebook dialog with P&G's PUR Water Products that P&G do NOT have a recycling program in place, nor even in development (seriously, in 2011?) to process the millions of used water filter cartridges they manufacture and sell on a global scale. As an active supporting of reducing unnecessary bottled water consumption, I was shocked and extremely disappointed to learn of P&G's current position.
While this "race" is of course, a signal that a potential sea change is on the horizon, we mustn't let it just stop there. Let's aim to keep these behemoth corporations focused on developing true and wholistic models of sustainability in their manufacturing and distribution chains.