Hershey Is Working Towards Zero Waste to Landfill
WHY IT MATTERS
More than a century ago, our founder Milton Hershey established our company’s first recycling center to reuse manufacturing waste. He embedded the practice of reusing waste and recycling building materials whenever possible right from the beginning. This led to creative solutions that benefited the whole Hershey community, like using the heat from factory turbines to heat public buildings or making cocoa butter soap with leftover materials. We’ve maintained that spirit of efficiency and work hard to continuously reduce, reuse and recycle our waste in creative ways that have benefits outside our walls.
HOW WE DO IT
We have a current goal to reduce waste by 25 percent (from 2015 levels) by 2025.
We take a multifaceted approach to diverting our waste from landfills and one important component is recycling. In 2019, our plants had an average recycling rate of 86 percent.
Better waste sorting is another component. By improving the waste separation process in the plant and recycling areas—especially for plastic and Tetra Pak waste—our El Salto plant helped achieve a 23 percent reduction in waste sent to landfill. This was supported by training given to all new and existing employees to help them identify recyclable and non-recyclable waste.
Read more in The Hershey Comapny's 2019 Sustainability Report
