Zero Waste to Landfill at Boeing's New Dreamliner Facility

The Dreamliner facility has become Boeing's first major site to achieve zero waste to landfill status 18 April 2011 Sonoco Recycling, subsidiary of food packaging manufacturer, Sonoco is partnering on Boeing's Zero Waste to Landfill project at its newly built South Carolina 787 Dreamliner final assembly and delivery facility. Under the partnership Sonoco says that it serves as a total solutions provider by identifying opportunities to reduce waste and divert materials from landfills, finding alternative uses for the materials that could result in new revenue streams, and by generating reports outlining productivity improvements and sustainability statistics. In addition to working directly with Boeing South Carolina on this project, Sonoco says that it also partners with other suppliers such as Carolina Waste Services, LLC, to implement a recycling program with point-of-use containers, as well as recycling centres located across the Boeing site. For example, food scraps are collected in cafeterias and break rooms for composting. Items that cannot be reused, such as larger packaging materials, are removed from the site by for repurposing or recycling. According to Sonoco these efforts result in 100% landfill diversion. "To help our customers achieve zero waste to landfill and reduce their overall environmental footprint, we identify ways to reuse, recycle or otherwise repurpose their waste materials," said Jim Brown, vice president, Sonoco Recycling. Boeing says that it will being construction of the first 787 Dreamliner aircraft at the new 1.1 million square foot (102,193 square metre) facility in July, and ramp up to full a production rate of three planes per month during 2012. Tony Soto, site environment, health and safety manager and zero waste to landfill project lead at boeing explained that the foundation of the plan is to reduce, reuse, and recycle. "We capitalised on the unique opportunity to establish the program early at the site to support Boeing enterprise targets for solid waste recycling and demonstrate our commitment to environmental stewardship. We are reducing the amount of material we bring onsite by utilizing reusable containers whenever possible, which are returned to suppliers."