Our EHS team collects waste data across all our facilities quarterly, enabling us to analyze our waste disposal and recycling practices and identify potential improvements while also helping us refine our data collection process.
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In 2024, we generated 7.1% less total waste compared to 2023 and recycled 64.4% of total waste from our operations. Hazardous waste made up 1.73% of the waste we disposed in 2024 primarily due to flood event cleanup at one facility.
We exceeded our target of a 2% annual waste to landfill reduction with a 6.5% reduction in 2024. As a result, we created a new target in 2024 of validating five facilities as zero waste to landfill by 2030. We define zero waste to landfill as a facility having at least a 90% diversion rate. We encourage associates across our organization to share their ideas and suggestions to reduce or divert waste at their facilities, through our WAVES Social Impact Fund Program.
In May of 2024, team members at our Norcross, GA facility gathered together for our Dumpster Day Event to collect one day's worth of industrial waste, resulting in a total of 221 lbs of cardboard waste collected. This would have accounted for 57,460 lbs of cardboard waste over the course of a year. The facility plans to move forward on properly recycling cardboard and obtaining the necessary equipment to achieve better waste separation, ultimately diverting more waste away from landfills through recycling and reuse.
A group of team members from sustainability, risk management, packaging engineering, operations and procurement worked with our overseas suppliers of sinks to find alternative options for their packaging materials. The supplier was packaging products in Styrofoam, which must be landfilled when the product is unpacked at our facilities. The team worked with three suppliers to switch the packaging to corrugate — a readily recyclable material — by ordering test pallets and working with operations to ensure the quality and unpacking process was improved with the new packaging. The project resulted in an estimated diversion of 23 tons of Styrofoam waste from the landfill each year.