The Bowling Green, Kentucky site is aligned with our corporate responsibility and sustainability initiatives as part of its long term business strategy. We are committed to reducing our impact to the environment. Our waste reduction programs reflect our close collaboration with our stakeholders, with innovation and engagement with our people. Our commitment to operational excellence provides a healthier future for people, their pets and our planet.
Reducing our overall waste by sending zero waste to landfill and waste to energy, and additional efforts towards recycling and reuse, we have completed many activities in the GBCI TRUE manual. This included training all employees and subcontractors on zero waste, organizing a dumpster dive activity on site, eliminating non-recyclable/non-reusable waste, implementing a food waste composting program, and working closely with stakeholders to reduce inbound and outbound packaging waste, etc.
Some highlights of our program include the following:
Redesign Process:The Bowling Green Green Team, Hill's Corporate Procurement, and our suppliers of raw meat completed a project to transition from cardboard gaylord boxes/pallets to reusable plastic totes for the shipment of the raw meat used to produce our pet food. This switch eliminated an entire waste stream from the facility along with 250,000 pounds of waste to landfill.
Waste Reduction Project: The Small Bag Packaging lines use pallets while palletizing/stretch wrapping, but once the pallets reach the point of pick up by the warehouse team, the finished goods pallets are pulled from the pallets using a specialized forklift attachment. Those pallets are then reused over and over in the process. Pallets that are damaged or odd sized are sold to a pallet recycling vendor for reuse. Good pallets not needed in the facility are stored on trailers and are shipped to our distribution centers for use as they ready finished goods shipments to our customers. This project saves nearly 100,000 pallets each year which is over 3.5 million pounds of pallets.
Large Bag Waste Reduction Project: The Bowling Green Packaging Team initiated a project that would enable the large bag palletizers to completely discontinue the use of pallets during the palletizing, stretch wrapping, and shipping of the finished goods bags. Instead of using pallets, the process would use plastic slip sheets. This eliminated the use of approximately 160,000 pallets to produce the nearly 160 SKUs on the large bag lines. The cost savings were nearly $750,000 annually and nearly 6.5 million pounds of pallets. Pallet waste due to damage was also significantly reduced with this reduction project.
“By 2025, we aim to achieve 100% TRUE certification for our global operations, including manufacturing sites, technology centers, strategic offices and owned warehouses,” says Ann Tracy, Chief Sustainability Officer. “With enthusiastic teams, collaborative partners and this comprehensive approach to waste reduction, we’re confident we can make it happen.”
Learn more about Colgate's sustainability efforts.