Many of us have heard about the financial success of Walmart and Sam’s Club over the past several years, but it is unlikely that many people have heard about the company’s most recent success.
In 2005, the CEO of Walmart (Lee Scott was the CEO in 2005.) envisioned a program that would make Walmart the first retailer to institute a zero-waste policy. Mr. Scott enlisted the help of Walmart’s Director for Store Innovations and Sustainability to get the job done. Vonda Lockwood went into action and began planning for Walmart’s Zero Waste Program.
Using a baseline of 2008, the first step to zero waste was defined and the wheels were set in motion. Walmart would strive to discontinue 100 percent of waste going to landfills from its U.S.-based operations by the year 2025.
EDF then stepped in to advocate Walmart’s goals, but to also discourage the use of incineration as a means to the end goal. EDF has long taken a strong position on the fact that the detriments of incineration outweigh the benefits. Incineration does not efficiently capture the energy used to make a product, and the infrastructure needed to support incineration is so costly, that the investment recovery process for the equipment is a never-ending process. The equipment is so prohibitively expensive that waste must continue to be burned just to pay the bills. Even if better reuse options come along, incineration must continue. Incineration only adds to air emissions and the need for ash disposal. For these reasons, better reuse and recycling options were investigated.
What Ms. Lockwood’s team came up with is so innovative, it is grabbing attention this week from environmental blogs across the country. For “green” advocates following Walmart’s efforts, the “super sandwich bale” is not an unfamiliar term. For those of us who are not familiar, it may sound like a new deal that Walmart has to feed a large family on a Friday night.
The “super sandwich bale” is, in fact, a tight bundle of waste cardboard that is comprised of 32 items for recycling. This can include aluminum cans, plastic hangers, plastic water and soda bottles, loose plastic wrap, office paper, and paperback books.
In 2009, Walmart was able to alleviate landfill waste by:
- 1.3 million pounds of aluminum
- 11.6 million pounds of mixed paper
- 18.9 pounds of plastic hangers
- 120 million pounds of plastic
Over 4.6 BILLION pounds of cardboard has been recycled as well. Despite these impressive results, Walmart took its efforts one step further and developed new and exciting means of disposing of food waste.
The EPA hierarchy for organic waste disposal (food and other decomposing plant and animal matter) is: source reduction – feed people – feed animals – industrial uses – composting – landfill/incineration. Walmart continues to try to perfect this model.
The Feeding America program, the nation’s largest hunger-relief charity, has received the benefit of partnering with Walmart to provide nearly 200 MILLION meals to food banks around the country. In conjunction with its network of Supercenters, Sam’s Clubs, and Neighborhood Markets, the Walmart Foundation has donated refrigerated trucks and funds to provide fresh fruit to people in need.
Walmart has also found a way to “dispose of” food not fit for human consumption due to time and spoiling; more than 130 wild animal parks around the country are feeding their lions, tigers, and other big cats thanks to Walmart’s efforts. Swine operations are recipients as well.
Organic diversion research has led to advances in the development of a national infrastructure for commercial composting facilities. Anaerobic digesters are being used to consume greenhouse gases and methane and convert it to energy.
Reaching TRUE zero waste is a difficult task; many companies “greenwash” their operations when in reality, only about 20% of waste is burned. Only truly renewable sources such as wind, solar, and tides should be used to produce energy. Trash needs to be dealt with in different manners. If you look to the waste that is produced by any of the U.S.-based Walmart locations, you will see dedicated employees interested in truly green options of redirecting trash in innovative and useful ways. This is even true for some of the Walmart facilities outside of the US.
Just as Walmart has become a leader in value-merchandising in the past several years, the company has become a leader in the quest to eliminate trash from the environment as well. Company shareholders now have at least two things to be very proud of.
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