Trash Be Gone

Last week I visited a manufacturing facility that promotes itself as "Zero Landfill". I know - it's hard to get one's mind around. How do they do that?

The company is West Liberty Foods (WLF) - formerly known as Louis Rich. they're the ones that prepare and slice turkey for Subway. They have 3 plants - one in West Liberty (duh), the one I visited in Mount Pleasant (employs around 500) and one at a town about an hour north of Salt Lake City, Utah.

I got to visit WLF to sit in on an audit they were doing on their Environmental Management System. I met their EMS manager, Michele Boney, a year ago at a conference. She is one of those "just try and stop me" kinda people, and she's fortunate to have top management on her side. They have bought into the environmental direction she feels they need to go. The company has invested a great deal of time and effort into "being green". And not in a Kermit the Frog kinda way.

WLF installed the Environmental Management System program in the mid 2000s. For their next act, in the past year they went zero landfill. Yikes! I can picture dealing with most items. Recycling is a no-brainer for tree-huggers like me. and they had recycling containers everywhere. They have also arranged for a compost company called Green RU out of Eddyville to collect their organic waste twice a week. But there are some types of waste - like bathroom waste - what do you do with that? WLF is fortunate. There is a cement kiln in their area that is looking for material to burn with coal to help boost the BTUs.

Michele says WLF recycles and reuses everything they can, and sends the rest to the incinerator for energy use. Landfill managers across Iowa are not thrilled with this turn of events - they are losing tons from their facilities. Solid Waste in Iowa is required by state code to be delivered to solid waste facilities within the "Planning Area" the waste was generated in. The WLF material (note I changed terms) is now going out of area - because now it's fuel!

I know - confusing. DNR's Solid Waste section writes permits for solid waste facilities for landfills and transfer stations - but they don't write permits for incinerators. That duty falls to the Air Quality folks. Still - controversial. In the meantime, WLF continues to strive to increase the tons they recycle and reduce what they send to the incinerator. They have purchased a machine that steams plastic to clean meat residue off of it - a reason recyclers haven't wanted it in the past.

I got to see the WLF water treatment plant which was pretty interesting. I must say though - trying to be landfill free isn't easy. The water treatment plant guy let us know it too! He had some items sitting around his shop that he just didn't know what to do with. He needed a matchmaker to help him funnel things to the right place. Figuring out how to recycle and compost everything from our HyVee carryout lunch was interesting though - so I could feel his pain!

Speaking of EMS - our consultants put together a logo for the program I oversee at work. I did get my baby girl, Amy's input (you may recall she is a fab Graphic Designer in Denver) after they sent some initial designs. Here is the finished product.