Waste Re-Use
Transforming waste into something with value
To reduce waste at our manufacturing plants and distribution centers, P&G employs a dedicated global team of experts. The GARP team (Global Asset Recovery Purchases) has expertise in creating value from waste.
Our GARP team is charged with finding external partners who can turn waste and non-performing inventory into something useful. In the past year alone, this small group of garbage gurus has diverted tens of thousands of tons from landfills, and has delivered tens of millions of dollars in cost recovery to the company by selling or donating materials to others who can reuse the materials.
Making Zero Waste a Reality
Michael Hagemeyer - Crailsheim Plant Waste Business Leader
P&G sends less than 1% of all materials entering P&G sites to landfill. In 2007, the Company announced it’s first plant to achieve zero manufacturing waste to landfill in Budapest. Today, 45 sites worldwide have achieved that status, and P&G is on a journey for all sites to eventually reach zero manufacturing waste to landfill.
P&G’s Crailsheim plant in Germany is another example of our commitment to zero manufacturing water to landfill across the Company.
“We needed to change our culture to reach zero manufacturing waste to landfill, so we created an interactive tool to educate employees about the proper disposal methods for every type of waste. Then we created a center that collects specified materials at designated times, which enabled 45 different materials to be recycled. Today, we ship 13,000 tons of waste from the plant to be recycled, reused, or converted to energy, and we send zero manufacturing waste to landfills!”
Committed to Reducing Manufacturing Waste
As part of P&G’s journey to have all sites send zero manufacturing waste to landfill, P&G is partnering with vendors to find innovative solutions to find value in waste. Some of these examples include:
- In Mexico, paper sludge from a Charmin plant is turned into low-cost roof tiles used to build homes in the local community.
- At a U.S. Pampers site, scrap from the wipe manufacturing process is converted to upholstery filling.
- In the U.K., waste created in the production of Gillette shaving foam is composted then used to grow turf for commercial uses.
P&G’s GARP team (Global Asset Recovery Purchases) continues to find innovative, cost-effective solutions for manufacturing waste:
- Excess floss is repurposed in Mexico as the filling in pillows that are used to clean up industrial spills.
- In India, scrap pads are recycled into plastic soles to make low-cost shoes.
- In Thailand and China, the waste left over from the hair care manufacturing process is combined with clay and coal ash, then heated to make bricks.
“We start by simply focusing on optimizing the recycling of conventional materials such as cardboard, plastics and metals. While this seems easy, we must make sure we create processes that enable our employees to sort everything efficiently and avoid contamination of these different materials. Then we bring in our Alternative Use team to help identify solutions for other scrap materials that have value in specific niche markets, such as wastewater and sludges. In some countries we can use sludges as an ingredient in the manufacture of bricks and in others we can use them as soil enhancers. I know that the work we are doing within the GARP team is delivering significant environmental benefits to all of our sites and the communities in which they operate.”
Touching lives, improving life. P&G™