North American packaging recycler, Sonoco Recycling, a unit of Sonoco has announced that Sonoco CorrFlex's Winston Salem, North Carolina facility has secured a silver-tier Sonoco Sustainability Star Award for diverting a minimum of 95% of its waste to landfill.
Employees at the facility established Team Green in 2008 to cut landfill waste in half and implement a plant-wide recycling program.
Sonoco said as part of the program, all plant waste streams were audited and evaluated for potential opportunities, using reduction, reuse and recycling to determine the landfill diversion solution.
Through assessment and reduction activities, Team Green also laid focus on controlling utility and water usage and began diverting salvageable metal to recycling outlets instead of storing or landfilling it.
The team placed recycling containers in all common areas, and encouraged employees to bring in their recyclables from home as well. An employee recycling fund was also set up, where all funds collected from recycling of plastic cans, aluminum bottles, office paper and plastic bags are divided evenly between all employees.
As a result of the initiatives, Team Green was invited to partner with one of the facility's customers, PepsiCo's Frito-Lay business, in ongoing resource conservation activity, the company said.
