We recycled over 36% of our total waste from operations in 2022, and we continue to evaluate opportunities to further eliminate or divert waste from our manufacturing process.
For example, in 2022 we piloted a new program at our manufacturing facility in Broadview, IL, to directly engage employees in our sustainability efforts. We convened a local “Green Team” made up of the plant manager, the maintenance manager and key office and shop floor associates to focus on energy efficiency, water efficiency and sustainable waste management at the site. In one of the location’s first projects, the Green Team examined materials being sent from the facility to the landfill to identify opportunities to reduce or divert that waste.
One of the waste streams analyzed included spent aluminum oxide from the facility’s sandblasting operation, which typically ended up in a landfill. The team identified a new waste vendor that can reuse that waste material to manufacture other abrasives, a process that will divert approximately 52,000 pounds of waste aluminum oxide from the landfill annually.