Isipingo goes green
Diageo’s target is to reduce waste to landfill to zero by 2015. To help us achieve this ambitious goal, our GREENiQ awards that reward sites for environmental improvements included a category for waste. One of this year’s gold award winners was Isipingo, a blending and packaging site in South Africa with over 200 employees.
From producing 7 tonnes of waste per month, Isipingo now produces just 2.1, while its ratio of waste to litre of product went from 2.47 g/l in October 2008 to just 0.35 g/l in September 2010. The methods they employed were simple, replicable and effective. The site worked closely with a new waste contractor and introduced the following:
- Colour-coded bins to help segregate waste
- A dedicated site operative to manage skips and segregation
- A capex project that reduced food waste, identified as a major source of landfill waste
- Encouragement of canteen suppliers to use recyclable materials
- Environmental key performance indicators built into every employee’s objectives.
But this is only the beginning. Isipingo is continuing to look at the waste hierarchy and how to reduce, reuse and recycle where possible, as well as reviewing new technologies for reducing waste.
Commenting on Isipingo’s gold medal, David Gosnell, President Global Supply & Procurement, said: ‘This is a great achievement that should be an example to all our sites globally. As Diageo continues its journey towards ever improving environmental performance, it is hugely encouraging to see the team at Isipingo achieve such great results and I’d like to congratulate everyone involved. But clearly we can’t stop here – the team at Isipingo should continue their journey towards sustainable, low-carbon practices and their gold medal should inspire other sites and individuals to rise to the challenge.’