On Tuesday, September 11, the Smithfield Pet, Orange City facility, celebrated its certification as a Zero-Landfill facility. A luncheon and awards presentation were held and attended by Smithfield employees and Orange City residents.
For more than a decade, Smithfield has worked to significantly reduce water and energy use, as well as the amount of waste that is sent to the landfill. Smithfield strives to demonstrate its commitment to protecting the environment by improving our environmental practices; including the reduction of solid waste generation (material to landfill). For the past year, Smithfield has worked towards meeting this goal of becoming a Zero-Landfill operation.
Smithfield achieved this status by completing the following:
- No waste sent to the landfill for 12 consecutive months.
- Cut normalized waste by at least 10 percent from the facility baseline.
- Reused or recycled at least 50 percent of generated waste.
- Limited incineration without energy recovery to hazardous and medical wastes.
- Reduced stabilized & land-filled hazardous waste to 0.1 percent of waste generated.
- Ensured waste management costs do not exceed 105 percent of baseline costs.
- Maintained records to be reviewed by staff and/or a third-party auditor.
Due to this achievement, Smithfield has cut waste disposal costs, generated revenue from selling recyclables and reduced emissions.
