GOJO Waste Reduction

July 10th, 2013 • BY

GOJO Industries produces and markets skin health and hygiene solutions for away-from-home settings. Doing business with hand cleaning, sanitizing, washing, and skin care formulas under the GOJO, PURELL, and PROVON brands, the company’s markets range from food service and hotels to schools and manufacturing.

According to GOJO, “We’re addressing the solid waste challenge within our workplaces with sustainable waste management programs geared toward reducing, reusing, and recycling. Our baseline goal for 2010 was 68 percent landfill avoidance, meaning that fully two-thirds of our solid waste was to be diverted to other uses. By the end of the first quarter 2011, we exceeded that landfill avoidance goal by an additional three percentage points.

“While our sustainable waste management efforts have been in place for many years, here are some of the results we have tracked since 2007:

* 3,872 tons of corrugated cardboard recycled, saving an estimated 66,000 trees and 93 million gallons of water

* 253 tons of scrap metal recycled, saving an estimated 910 barrels of oil and enough metal to make more than 600 hybrid cars

* 142 tons of office paper recycled, saving the equivalent of more than 2,400 trees, nearly a million gallons of water and 600,000 kWh of electricity.”

UNUSED PRODUCT

“GOJO has had over 883 tons of product for other use in other businesses. The scope of this sustainable waste management initiative expanded greatly in mid-2010, with up to 25 percent of GOJO waste being earmarked for this innovative recycling project.

“More recently, GOJO has partnered with a recycling partner and nationwide environmental consulting firm to reuse up to 90 percent of product left over from production.

“With this program our soap will get a second life as an industrial equipment wash, industrial floor wash, automotive car detail wash, wheel, dashboard and leather cleaners and for other industrial applications.”

• PLAYGROUNDS. “Sustainable waste management has resulted in more than 176 tons of scrap plastic being donated for conversion into more than 320 playgrounds.”

• PENS. “When we found that 1.6 billion pens are discarded in landfills in America every year, we wanted to address the issue. Our Writing Instrument Recycling Program, in partnership with Staples® and Newell Rubbermaid, sends our used pens and markers to join the TerraCycle™ Writing Instrument Brigade. TerraCycle recycles them into pellets that will be used to make such items as storage totes. Best of all, the Akron-Canton (Ohio) Regional Food Bank will receive cash donations from TerraCycle based on the number of writing instruments turned in by GOJO employees.”