When Procter and Gamble we looking at ways to meet their drive towards zero waste from manufacture the called on the expertise of Veolia to transform the way they thought about waste.
The challenge
Leading consumer brand, Procter & Gamble (P&G) manufactures household names that include Gillette razors, Pampers, Fairy Liquid and Duracell. In recent years, the company has significantly changed the way it views waste. By actively pursuing a global zero manufacturing waste initiative, P&G has halved its environmental impact between 2002 and 2011 by reducing its carbon emissions by 53%, using 52% less energy and 58% less water.
The company has also achieved zero waste to landfill across 45 of its global manufacturing sites and is responsible for less than 1% of its waste going to landfill globally. Since 2008, P&G has also reduced the amount of waste produced by 68%. The first facility in the UK to become 100% diversion from landfill was the Veolia-managed, Gillette aerosol manufacturing facility based in Reading.
Veolia’s solution
Veolia secured a contract in 2010 when P&G performance was at 77.7% beneficial re-use and was acutely aware of P&G’s zero waste to landfill objective. Our challenge was to help realize the beneficial re-use of all waste streams across the Reading facility.
Veolia reviewed and analyzed all waste streams with P&G and identified opportunities across the manufacturing facility.
A series of waste audits highlighted materials that had the potential to be recycled or treated through the Veolia network of local treatment facilities.
Predominantly an aerosol manufacturing plant, Veolia was able to help the Reading facility to reprocess every component in its aerosol cans. This included extracting the gases, recycling the metal can itself and processing the organic liquid as Secondary Liquid Fuel (SLF) which was subsequently used as an alternative fuel source for kilns in the cement industry.
The benefits for our client
P&G’s Reading manufacturing facility achieved zero waste to landfill during 2011. Veolia supported this achievement with an innovative service that considered all waste streams and investigated many environmentally friendly alternatives. This resulted in P&G achieving its beneficial reuse rate of 100%.