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CRAIG SAUNDERS
Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, Apr. 26, 2011 2:00PM EDT
Last updated Tuesday, Apr. 26, 2011 2:26PM EDT
Tremco Commercial Sealants and Waterproofing doesn’t send anything to the dump.

The manufacturing company set out in June, 2008, to make its Toronto factory a zero-landfill facility. In March, the company proudly announced that it had achieved its goal, more than two years ahead of schedule.

Zero-landfill is an idea that has its roots back in the 1960s, but which has been gaining momentum as dumps fill up and environmental concerns grow. Today, many companies are taking this approach, which can involve various levels of reduction, re-use and recycling.

At Tremco, recycling has been the focal point. The company brought in a series of educational programs and employee incentives to encourage workers to correctly sort waste and ensure that anything recyclable went into an appropriate bin. That sorting is audited weekly to make sure that batches of recyclables are not contaminated with the wrong sort of materials.

The results have been significant. Last year, the company recycled more than 209 tonnes of cardboard, 121 tonnes of pallets, 148 tonnes of steel and 33 tonnes of other scrap metal, as well as smaller volumes of cans, bottles, wood and plastic.

But not everything can be recycled. This plant makes sealants, and that means a lot of chemicals, some of which are not exactly green. Material that is not collected for recycling is sent to cement kilns where it is burned and the heat used to make cement.

Another part of the company’s environment program involves finding alternatives for some of these chemicals, in particular volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can be bad for the environment and human health.

“We are looking at our formulations to see if we can replace hazardous materials with non-hazardous materials,” says Raghunandan.

Many of these are used as solvents. When sealants are used by a builder, the solvents evaporate, causing the product to cure. Tremco is increasingly switching to water-based curing agents instead of solvents for products. It has cut its use of ethylbenzene from 8600 pounds in 2001 to 2400 pounds in 2009, and will continue to cut VOC volumes as other products, including its popular Tremco 830 outdoor sealant, are converted.

Tremco’s achievement comes just as Toronto is being barred from shipping its waste to Michigan. In January, the city started sending all its garbage to a landfill near London, Ont., that it bought in 2007. About 793,000 tonnes of garbage will get dumped into the Green Lane landfill this year, the city estimates. The site is big at 130 hectares, but Toronto estimates it will be full by 2025 unless the city can increase its diversion rate to 70 per cent. If it meets that target through a combination of recycling, its Green Bin municipal composting program and other initiatives, then the landfill will last until 2033.

General Motors is the highest-profile company to adopt a zero-landfill strategy. It began with an engine plant in Flint, Mich., back in 2005. Three years later, the company declared that half of its facilities would be landfill-free by 2010. The company recently announced that it has met its goal with 76 of its facilities being landfill-free. The list includes two GM plants in St. Catharines, Ont.

“We are committed to building sustainable communities where we operate and this is one of the ways we can do that,” says Jason Easton, corporate communications co-ordinator for General Motors Canada. “Diverting waste and reducing our environmental impact not only is the right thing to do, there’s also some economic benefit, as well. Any time you reduce waste, you are implementing a more efficient system.”
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