LA FARGE, Wis.—Organic Valley Family of Farms joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) WasteWise Program in February 2009. WasteWise is the country’s first national voluntary solid waste reduction program that encourages organizations to reduce municipal solid waste through waste prevention, recycling, and buying or manufacturing recycled content products. The WasteWise program focuses on waste prevention—actions that minimize or eliminate the generation of waste before it is created—with the goal of decreasing the amount of material that must be managed through recycling or landfilling. WasteWise partners have saved millions of dollars in purchasing costs and waste disposal fees by reducing, reusing and recycling solid waste materials.
In 2008, through a general waste reduction program, including composting and recycling efforts at its headquarters, distribution center, butter creamery and cheese cut-and-wrap facilities, Organic Valley reduced waste by 25 percent by diverting more than 100,000 pounds of waste from landfills.
Last year, Organic Valley used 70 percent recycled fiber to ship its products and saved:
- 45,212,074 gallons of water (equivalent to 75 Olympic size swimming pools)
- 25,835,471 kWh of energy
- 109,801 trees
- 2,454,270 gallons of oil
- 19,377 cubic feet of landfill space
The amount of energy and oil that was saved is equivalent to 43,682 metric tons of carbon, which equals the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 8,000 passenger vehicles.
In 2009 through the WasteWise program, Organic Valley hopes to build upon the success of 2008 and further reduce waste by five percent.
“Our commitment to the health of our planet began 20 years ago when we formed our cooperative to save family farms through organic agriculture,” said Cecil Wright, vice president of sustainability at Organic Valley. “We’re continuously looking at ways to reduce our waste and preserve our natural resources, and partnering with WasteWise is a natural extension of our commitment to protecting the environment.”