As part of its recently released Sustainability Commitment, the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) is sharing ‘best practice’ case studies on local food and beverage manufacturers that have introduced major sustainability initiatives, aiming to encourage other companies to follow suit.
Wrigley achieves zero waste to landfill
Established in 1958, the Wrigley Asquith site produces the vast majority of gum and mints for the Pacific region including the Extra, Eclipse, P.K. and Juicy Fruit brands.
Sustainability is a leading priority for Wrigley as the company works towards its global aspiration of converting all operations to becoming ‘Sustainable in a Generation’, or more specifically by 2040.
Since 2007, Wrigley has been working on an-ambitious waste reduction goal to achieve zero waste-to-landfill globally by 2015. The Wrigley Asquith plant is one of only four facilities within the global Wrigley network to have already achieved this target.
The approach is based on a simple waste hierarchy, with disposal in landfill as a last resort. Thanks to the joint efforts of various business teams, recycling output from Wrigley Australia facilities has doubled in the last four years, with all waste generated at the Asquith site streamlined into categories, either recycled or sent away for energy recovery.
Since 2009, 74 per cent of waste at the Asquith site has been recycled, including paper, pallets, cardboard packaging and scrap materials. Liquid food waste is sent to an alternative energy producer and solid food waste is sent for reuse at a feed stock company to be used in the production of stock feed.
The remaining disposable solid waste is diverted from landfill to the Woodlawn Bioreactor, one of the leading forms of alternative waste technology. The bioreactor is purpose-built to decompose residual waste.
During the decomposition process, alternative energy-biogas is captured and turned into green electricity. Since 2009, Wrigley has contributed over 415,000 kilo watt hours of renewable energy through the waste decomposing process at the bioreactor, which has potential to power over 50 Australian households for one whole year.
George Weston Foods’ energy-saving initiatives
George Weston Foods (GWF), one of Australia’s largest millers and wholesalers of grain, is committed to identifying energy efficient opportunities across its sites. This includes a program of energy efficiency audits aimed at targeting areas to reduce energy demand.
As part of a factory expansion, its small goods manufacturing plant in Castlemaine, Victoria, joined an alliance of local businesses and community committed to reducing energy demand. As a result of this partnership, the site installed two-by-two megawatt gas powered combined heat and power (CHP) cogeneration engines, which ensure that the site generates more of its own energy from a lower-carbon emitting fuel source.
These units currently supply almost two thirds of the site’s electricity needs, and on this basis alone have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 74 per cent compared with deriving this power from a grid supply.
Additionally, the GWF Tip Top manufacturing facility in South Australia identified an opportunity to reduce its lighting use in a storage and distribution area and encourage natural sunlight into the facility. They replaced colour bond roofing sections with clear roof panels.
This has removed the need for up to 37 bay lights, saving approximately 54,000 kWh of electricity – that’s enough energy to boil an electric kettle full of water about 360,000 times. Such initiatives have helped GWF reduce its reportable greenhouse gas emissions by 7.3 per cent in the past year.
Coca-Cola Amatil’s blowfill technology investment
In 2011, Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) continued the $450 million group-wide rollout of blowfill technology, or PET bottle self-manufacture technology, with three additional lines commissioned in Australia. Blowfill technology has enabled CCA to design new lightweight primary and secondary packaging, and has enabled the saving of thousands of tonnes of raw materials.
CCA’s Mount Franklin Easy-Crush bottle went into the market in 2011 as the lightest Australian-produced 600ml water bottle made with 35 per cent less PET plastic and a carbon footprint that is 27 per cent less than the previous Mount Franklin bottle.
The Mount Franklin Easy-Crush Bottle is 100 per cent recyclable and easily crushed when empty, making it easier to recycle. This innovation was awarded gold in the Australian Packaging Covenant Sustainability Award category of the 2011 Australian Packaging Design Awards.
Blowfill technology has enabled the company to lightweight its entire small carbonated soft drink PET plastic bottle range, making the bottles the lightest in the global Coca-Cola system.
When the rollout of the blowfill technology across the group is completed in 2015, it is estimated that more than 9000 tonnes of PET resin a year will be saved.
CCA has also contributed to major recycling initiatives with customers, including Westfield and Hoyts. Other efficient recycling achievements include:
• Sustained investment in public place recycling infrastructure through the Packaging Stewardship Forum (PSF), which contributed to the installation of more than 5000 new recycling bins and the provision of free signage support to 38 councils and communities across Australia to educate the community on litter reduction and recycling
• The continued roll-out of the Coca-Cola Customer Recycling Program with in excess of 450 Coca-Cola branded wheelie bins rolled out across the country
• The ongoing funding of the Coca-Cola Foundation Community Recycling Grants to Keep Australia Beautiful which, in turn, offers financial assistance to local communities wishing to improve beverage container recycling.
Green tags for Heinz
HJ Heinz has five manufacturing sites in Australia and is committed to achieving sustainable growth guided by the principles of integrity, transparency and social responsibility. It tracks the progress by setting and monitoring environmental targets for all operations across the country.
This is done through an environmental management system that is audited annually at each one of its sites.
At the Golden Circle Mill Park site, staff issued with ‘green tags’ walked through the site and conducted a Kaizen event to identify leaks in water, oil, steam and compressed air. The team of staff tagged and recorded leaks and further put the leaks in as maintenance requests.
This was a low-cost initiative that saved an estimated 42,930 kilolitres of water and associated gas, electricity and trade waste volume savings.
The Wagga Wagga Site installed water solenoids on can washers and programmable logic controlled (PLC) pumps to run only when required. Training and awareness of steam components has been improved to help team members assess their operation and make timely repairs. This has increased condensate return quantities to the boiler house and reduced water consumption.
At its Echuca site, Heinz installed SMART meters and reduced water use in Clean in Place (CIP) processes. Additionally, the Northgate, Brisbane , site has had expensive compressed air replaced by air drying of bottles on two cordial lines. Also, the large vacuum pump water is recycled plus the rinse water in the cordial lines.
End note: These case studies and others can be found in the Australian Food and Grocery Council Sustainability Commitment 2010-11 report.
