Less waste, all of it sorted

Paulig seeks to minimise its environmental impact by investing in the best available technology and by designing and managing the manufacturing process for maximum efficiency.

Vähemmän jätettä, kaikki lajiteltunaEnvironmental awareness and expertise play a key role in production. The environmental goals of the Vuosaari roastery include improvements in energy-efficiency and the reduction of packaging material as well as cutting down on the quantity of waste.

Mixed waste at zero

At Paulig, all waste is sorted. Over the years, particularly close attention has been paid to organising waste sorting. The results achieved by this are good – for example, the Vuosaari roastery produces no mixed waste at all in normal conditions. The overall quantity of waste has declined markedly.

The aim is for all wastes to be recycled as a material or at least for energy. The largest categories are energy and organic waste. Organic waste is partly composted and partly used for energy. New points in waste sorting are the inclusion of plastic recovery and sending part of the organic waste to a biogas plant.

"In the beginning of 2012, Paulig joined the climate partnership network of the Finnish business community and the City of Helsinki. At the same time, we committed ourselves to a significant reduction in the quantity of organic waste and other action."

- Erkki Enström, Production Manager

Measurable targets encourage waste reduction

Quantities of waste at Paulig have been monitored systematically since 2002, and in 2012 a tangible benchmark was set for reducing these. In 2012, the target was to reduce the quantity of organic waste by ten per cent. However, this target was strikingly overachieved and the quantity of organic waste was reduced by almost 40 per cent.

Reducing the quantity of organic waste is also one of the bonus benchmarks for manufacturing personnel.

All employees know that they can affect the benchmark result by what they do. In order to reach the target, improvements also have to be made in the production process to reduce wastage. For example, removing stones from incoming green coffee beans due to a change in the process results in substantially fewer coffee beans ending up as organic waste.

Further information about the climate partnership network:
http://www.hel.fi/hki/Ymk/fi/uutiset/ilmastokumppanit

 

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