National Starch, a member of the ICI Group, has received three awards in the USA for its recycling and waste reduction efforts at its largest manufacturing facility. The awards acknowledge work by National Starch Food Innovation in achieving a sustainable waste reduction of 98.6 per cent at its Indianapolis plant.
The site was awarded the 2007 National Recycling Coalition’s Fred Schmitt Award for Outstanding Corporate Leadership, Keep America Beautiful has recognised the achievements in its waste reduction category of annual awards, and the business also won a 2007 Indiana Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence.
The recycling and waste reduction programme started when an employee asked: “Why don’t we recycle more at National Starch?” Although a number of individual recycling initiatives were already in place, increased environmental benefits and cost savings from a more comprehensive programme were identified.
A pilot scheme was established on part of the Indianapolis site with the goal of reducing the volume of non-hazardous waste generated by 75 per cent. The 98.6 per cent reduction was achieved through recovering, reusing, or recycling all items within waste streams. The plant now recycles items including cardboard, paper, plastics, bulk bags, pallets, scrap wood, starch, co-products, metals, electronic equipment, cell phones, batteries, office paper, and ink cartridges.
After one year, the volume of waste sent to the landfill has been reduced dramatically. "We are now annually sending only 36 tons of material to landfill compared to the 2,398 tons previously sent prior to adopting the programme," says Ron McCrimmond, Senior Director, Indianapolis Site and Divisional Operations, National Starch and Chemical Company.
“We are proud for being recognised with these awards," says McCrimmond. "Our workforce accepted our new employee-driven recycling initiatives and they have really directed the success of our programme. We’ve achieved incredible results and recycling is now part of everyone’s regular duties.”