Section 7:

Use of Natural Resources

INGREDIENT PACKAGING
At our manufacturing facilities we are constantly working to purchase our ingredients in the largest, most practical and safest-to-handle containers. Larger containers cut down on the packaging/ingredient ratio and reduce materials used.

For instance, cases may carry more of our incoming ingredient pounds, but they proportionately contribute more to the packaging waste stream than larger packages like totes and drums. The same goes for our ingredients measured in gallons. One-gallon jugs carry far more of our ingredients than other packages, yet their small size necessitates a large package quantity and they contribute far more to packaging waste proportionately than larger pails and drums.

Transitions in packaging have also presented more oppor- tunities for packaging reuse and recycling. In 1999 we tested and implemented an initiative developed by the Packaging Innovation Group (PIG), an interdepartmental employee team formed in 1998 to spearhead efforts to reduce ingredient packaging:

• The Packaging Innovation Group (PIG) implemented the use of bulk containers for marshmallow and caramel, two heavily-used (and heavy-to-handle) ingredients at our Waterbury facility. All of the necessary racks, piping and pumps needed for this project were installed during 1999.
• Incoming yogurt now comes in specially-designed totes instead of conventional 5-gallon pails, a change which not only reduces the amount of incoming packaging, but also greatly reduces the amount of manual handling of ingredients by employees.

In addition to their solid waste reduction benefits, totes have been welcomed by our production staff, who find them much easier to handle.

The company also factors environmentally-sound packaging into the supplier selection process (see Section 6).

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE
Reduction efforts at our plants are ongoing. Because we stress materials reduction and reuse, our plants reduce the overall amount of material recycled. The St. Albans plant earned almost $60,000 from its recycling efforts by selling approximately 95% of all incoming ingredient boxes. This revenue not only covered the plant’s entire solid waste cost, but also made a profit. The Waterbury plant earned over $10,000 in recycling revenue. This revenue was used for equipment

purchases for ongoing recycling support and solid waste cost. The Springfield plant earned approximately $6,000 from their recycling efforts, and the Distribution Center earned approximately $2,000. Our Springfield plant purchased and installed a new stretch-wrap machine, which reduced their stretch-wrap usage by 66%.

Following are some of the items reused or recycled at the five major Vermont sites, including Central Support and the Distribution Center:

• Stretch-wrap/shrink-wrap, plastic bags
• Fiber drums, including the metal lids
• Plastic buckets and pails and ingredient containers
• Steel drums, metal lids and metal bands
• Corrugated boxes and totes
• All office paper, magazines and newspaper
• Bottles and cans

PRODUCT PACKAGING & PAPER USE
The environmental impact of our food packaging and the use of chlorine in making paper are two issues in the forefront at Ben & Jerry’s. Significant resources have been devoted to this area of our business.

PINT CONTAINERS
In early 1997 Ben & Jerry’s conducted a project with the environmental consulting firm McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry on the environmental aspects of our pint containers (the company purchases about 100 million of these containers annually). On discovering that our current pint, the industry standard, did not meet the necessary environmental sustainability index this consulting firm had developed, we worked further with them to identify designs and sources of paper, coatings, inks and adhesives that would eventually allow our pint container to be environmentally sustainable and compostable.