Zero Waste Achieved For Brewer

It was recently announced that MillerCoors brewing in Golden, Colorado has become the largest brewery in the United States to achieve zero waste status. MillerCoors joins four other landfill-free breweries in this designation. The company anticipates that an average of one hundred and thirty five tons of waste is being diverted from landfills on a monthly basis.

MillerCoors started on a strategic, environmental and cost-savings plan to reduce their municipal waste generated at the Golden production facility in 2011. In addition to changes and improvements in their production process, the company invested close to one million dollars in new equipment and infrastructure updates.

The brewery now recycles or reuses one hundred percent of the waste it generates, including all plastics, glass, metal, paperboard, and brewing products such as spent grain. Cafeteria waste and floor sweepings are sent to a waste-to-energy facility instead of landfills.

MillerCoors officials are hopeful that the success of attaining zero waste designation will be scale-able to their other facilities throughout the country and North America.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: When you want to reduce your waste and increase your recycling, the most important thing to have is a plan. Start with a few areas that are easier to tackle – like paper recycling and proper e-waste disposal – and then move on to areas that may require new business policies or employee behavior changes. Incremental changes will slowly grow and in a few years your company might be attaining zero waste status as well!