Eliminating Waste & Recycling More

“When it comes to sustainability our focus is to reduce waste, increase recycling, and use energy and water more efficiently. For example we use our spent coffee grounds as fuel to generate steam, we reduced our specific water usage by 28% in 2009 and we are now recycling over 90% of our waste.”
 
 

Gavin Burton
Tutbury Factory Manager

Eliminating waste and reducing our consumption of natural resources are important global priorities for Nestlé. Our UK goal is zero waste and full recovery of unavoidable by-products. In 2009, we set a target for all of our Nestlé UK factories of zero total waste sent to landfill by 2015.

Our Goals

Our actions

To date our efforts have achieved a reduction of 57% waste going to landfill and we are constantly working on our waste stream to improve recycling and recovery.

Zeroing in on waste

As of July 2011 three of our factories, Girvan, Dalston and York, have all reached their target of zero waste to landfill – four years ahead of deadline.

• In Girvan, where we make chocolate crumb, the factory provides skips into which different types of waste can be segregated then recycled or reused. Waste wood is crushed into chips and sold on for use in chipboard in kitchen counters. Product waste is processed and used in animal feed on farms within 50 miles of the factory.
• In York we have worked with Yorwaste to develop a total waste management solution. Achieving zero waste to landfill at York has delivered a £120,000 per annum saving through removal of landfill tax and revenue generated from nearly 800 tonnes of recovered materials.

No good food should be wasted

We work with national charity FareShare to redistribute any surplus food to disadvantaged people, or to dispose of non-edible food in an environmentally friendly way.

From April 2010 to March 2011 1,110,000 meals worth of food were donated and 417 fewer tonnes of waste were sent to landfill.