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Our Operations

Waste

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Waste is a problem because of the needless resource use and greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing it and also because of the impacts of its disposal, such as the methane created as organic materials decompose in landfill. Finding places to put the waste we create can be a problem as the global population grows and the cost of waste disposal increases.

We are committed to mitigating the impacts of waste creation and are working on a long-term commitment. Our current approach is based on a simple waste hierarchy. Disposal in landfill is a last resort, and we have committed to sending no waste to landfill by 2015.

The processes required to eliminate all waste can actually create energy or water use with greater impacts than the waste itself. In those cases, finding a beneficial use for the waste, through recycling or incineration with energy recovery, may be the lowest-impact solution. We are committed to understanding these dynamics and developing long-term targets beyond landfill avoidance.

Waste pyramid

In 2010, our operations sent 89.5 kilotonnes of waste to landfill, 37 percent less than in 2007. This puts us on track for achieving our 2015 goal of sending zero waste to landfill. Our Chocolate, Wrigley and Symbioscience segments all cut their use of landfill by more than 60 percent between 2007 and 2010. Our Drinks segment has already eliminated waste to landfill from its manufacturing sites in West Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S., and Basingstoke, U.K. (see feature).

Mars, Incorporated and segment landfill waste (kilotonnes)

Wrigley's manufacturing facility in Poznan, Poland, sends zero waste to landfill — an achievement reached in 2009. The facility repurposes or recycles waste, including excess packaging and wood used for shipping pallets and trays. Excess gum waste is cut and mixed with other materials and used as fuel, while surplus sweeteners are purified and used as an energy source for manufacturing. Our Wrigley Asquith facility in Australia also sends zero waste to landfill.

Since 2007, Mars Food Australia has halved the amount of waste it sends to landfill by raising awareness of responsible disposal among Associates and investing in new processes, such as segregated bins and composting.

Mars Associates are also looking at ways to reduce office waste, particularly paper. Across our business, we use double-sided printing and recycled paper to reduce the amount of waste paper we create. Read more about how our Associates are helping us meet our targets.

Mars Drinks eliminates waste to landfill

Mars Drinks eliminates waste to landfill

Mars Drinks' operations in West Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S., and Basingstoke, U.K., have already eliminated waste to landfill.

For example, at West Chester, by assessing waste streams throughout the facility, Associates found opportunities to reduce, reuse and recycle, including:

Recycling bin at our Mars Drinks manufacturing site, Basingstoke, U.K.
  • All scrap product generated in the factory goes to an animal-feed-production facility.
  • Nozzles are shipped in reusable totes resulting in a reduction of approximately 60 cardboard boxes per day.
  • All wooden pallets are returned for refurbishment.
  • Cardboard and plastic laminate cores are recycled.

Championing Waste Management: Q&A with Gulnaz Minnullina

Q. What is your role at Mars?

A. I am the Environment Manager of four Mars factories in Russia that produce chocolate, food and pet food. My work involves improving environmental performance at our operations and trying to reach our Sustainable in a Generation targets.

Q. How have you improved the environmental performance of the factories?

A. We have been working very hard to improve the waste management system at one factory in Sitenka. In 2007, around 80 percent of the waste was going to landfill, and we were only recycling three types of waste. Now less than 10 percent of our waste ends up in a landfill.

Q. How have you achieved such a significant improvement?

A. We have been working to reduce, reuse, replace and recycle. The most important factor was getting our Associates to help us by raising awareness about the importance of recycling. We now recycle 15 waste streams, which has dramatically improved our performance.

Working with a specialist from a local soil institution, we also developed a completely new technology to turn sludge to fertilizer. Finally, we have started using biogas from our waste to replace diesel fuel.

Q. How did you get your Associates involved?

A. It is important to understand this was more challenging in Russia than perhaps it would be elsewhere. There is less recycling infrastructure, and recycling is not such a part of the culture here. So educating our Associates was very important. As well as increasing awareness, we wanted our Associates to take ownership of our waste-reduction strategy and come up with ideas to help us.

To do this we provided environmental training and seminars through the Mars University. We also increased our communications about environmental issues through a local sustainability blog in Russian as well as through articles in our Associate Journal. We encouraged people to participate through an environmental awareness day and explained how each Associate could help us reach our common Mars goals.

Q. Are you adopting the same approach in other areas?

A. Yes, we have now formed special working groups for waste, water and energy at each of our operations. Associates can volunteer to join, and we provide training and support to help them reach our goals. We hope that these teams will be just as successful in other areas as we were reducing waste at Sitenka.

Read about how Gulnaz Minnullina was recognized for her achievements with a Make a Difference award.

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