RPC Llantrisant Targets Zero Waste to Landfill

RPC Llantrisant has taken measures to reduce its consumption of electricity since 2003, and has lightweighted its entire range of juice bottles.

4/8/2011 --- RPC Llantrisant has completed a project to reduce landfill by more than 90% through the sale of factory waste. The result has been a reduction in the factory’s carbon footprint, significant cost savings and the generation of additional revenue.

This is the latest initiative highlighting the difference that can be made at a single RPC site. RPC Llantrisant has taken measures to reduce its consumption of electricity since 2003, and has lightweighted its entire range of juice bottles. The site is also a leader in the use of food contact R-PET for packaging, being a development partner with WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) and Marks & Spencer.

Reducing landfill waste was the logistical next step in RPC Llantrisant’s sustainability initiatives. The site worked with sustainable business experts Environwise to implement a suitable strategy.

Manufacturing Manager Jon Bedgood led the project with the help of the site’s experienced team, including Technical Health & Safety Supervisor Malcolm Crahart. The starting point was to identify items that the factory could pass on or sell to third parties as a resource.

"The process has been remarkably easy to implement, relying on common sense more than anything else,” he explains. "It’s been a matter of separating items as soon as possible after production to avoid cross-contamination, and then finding available markets.”

RPC Llantrisant found that the local council was able to take away some items as part of its own sustainability commitment, including waste paper, cans and plastic cups. Other resources were sold on for alternative use, generating additional revenue. When the income was added to the cost savings made from avoiding container costs for shipping waste to landfill sites, RPC Llantrisant had effectively paid for the cost of the project and even made a net profit.

More important to RPC’s sustainability targets has been the drop in carbon footprint. "We’ve already reduced annual landfill from 270 tonnes to less than 20 tonnes. That amount continues to fall, and our ultimate target is a zero waste site,” confirms Jon Bedgood.

To put this achievement into perspective, RPC Llantrisant has quantified the saving at 2,000 tonnes of CO2e in 2010 – around 16% of RPC’s emissions savings in the UK. The amount is equivalent to removing between 600 and 700 cars off the roads – or six cars per employee at the factory.

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