Dupont Building Innovations Achieves Zero Landfill Status

Dupont Building Innovations, Dupont’s building unit, achieved zero landfill status, the company announced on January 11, 2012. The company managed to send nothing to landfills by reducing, reusing and recycling manufacturing byproducts and waste at its manufacturing sites globally. Through its Drive to Zero landfill program, which began three years ago, the company reduced its environmental footprint from 81 million pounds of landfill waste a year to zero. Dupont Building Innovations manufactures Corian solid surfaces, Dupont Zodiaq quartz surfaces, Dupont Tyvek weatherization systems products and geosynthetic textiles.

The Drive to Zero land programs achieved its goal of zero waste by reusing or recycling the following:

• Sanding waste, which is used as a filler replacement in concrete in the manufacture of Corian and Zodiaq


• Ground-up scrap Corian sheet is used as recycled content in Dupont’s Terra Collection of Corian solid surfaces, which now contain up to 20 percent recycled content


• Crushed scrap Corian is sold for use as road sub-based material and as landscape stone


• Tyvek wrap and flushing manufacturing trim is recycled into first-grade material


• Shipping pallets are repaired, reused or ground into animal bedding


• Carrier belt film is melted and used to make adhesives


• Cafeteria waste is recycled into worm bedding or converted into energy

“The Drive to Zero landfill program is good for our business, good for the environment and highly valued by our customers,” said Timothy P. McCann, president of DuPont Building Innovations.  “Working with our supply chain partners to tackle the zero landfill goal was critical to the success of our business in reducing its environmental footprint.  Collaborating with our business partners allowed us to succeed in reaching our ambitious project goal of zero landfill.”

Other companies achieve zero landfill status

Back in 2007, Toyota’s eight European manufacturing facilities achieved zero waste to landfill status. Three years later, 62 of GM’s manufacturing plants, 43 percent of its global manufacturing facilities, achieved zero landfill status. The plants which achieved zero landfill status include 27 facilities in North America, 21 in Asia-Pacific and Latin America and 14 in Europe. The GM plants achieved the status by recycling or reusing 97 percent of waste materials from plants and three percent converted to energy.

Another company managed to achieve zero waste to landfill status at one of its plants in Maine in 2010, Proctor and Gamble. The Maine plant recycles or reuses over 60 percent of its waste, and converts the rest to electricity through incineration. Nine other P&G plants achieved zero waste to landfill status.

Photo credit: Dupont website