- Secretary of State for Scotland Visits Nestlé’s
- First UK Factory to Achieve Zero Waste to Landfill
- Nestlé Girvan Achievement is Five Years Ahead of Target
Girvan, September 30 - Michael Moore MP, Secretary of State for Scotland today visited Girvan, Scotland to help celebrate the Nestlé factory becoming its first site to achieve zero waste to landfill five years ahead of target.
The achievement is a milestone within Nestlé’s sustainability programme which set a target for all 14 factories in the UK and Ireland to achieve zero total waste by 2015. To date a reduction of 57% of Nestlé UK waste going to landfill has already been achieved, far exceeding the target of ten per cent set in 2008.
Paul Grimwood Chairman and CEO, Nestlé UK & Ireland said: “Our ambition is to offer products with the lowest environmental impact. As part of our lifecycle approach we look at everything from the energy we use and our packaging design to the waste we generate. We are determined to drive down waste at all levels of our operations - whether it’s aiming for zero waste to landfill or helping our consumers to reduce the amount that they throw away by providing recyclable packaging. I am extremely proud that the team in Girvan has achieved zero waste to landfill five years ahead of target and we expect at least one other site to follow suit shortly.”
“We endorse the Government’s commitment to work towards a zero waste economy for the UK and encourage Government to support efforts to provide the necessary UK-wide infrastructure and increased capacity needed to maximise resource efficiency through recycling and recovery technologies. Zero waste makes good sense for all of us”
Michael Moore MP said during his visit: "The announcement today that Nestlé Girvan is its first zero waste factory in UK is fantastic news and echoes the coalition agreement we published in May where we said we would work towards a ‘zero-waste’ economy, and take action to support green growth.”
“It’s great to see that Nestlé has already started down this road and I hope that other businesses will follow their lead.”
Nestlé’s factory in Girvan Scotland makes 30,000 tonnes of chocolate crumb for some of the UK’s best loved confectionery brands such as Kit Kat, Aero and Quality Street. The factory has reduced the amount of total waste it sends to landfill to zero from 12.5 tonnes per month.
To tackle the issue of waste the site has introduced a waste segregation system. Any waste that cannot be recycled is sent to an energy-from-waste recovery plant that, in turn, uses the energy as a heat source. Girvan’s achievement of “zero waste to landfill” from June 2010 was audited and verified by independent auditors, Bureau Veritas*.
The Girvan case study is just one example of the work outlined in Nestlé UK & Ireland’s new Creating Shared Value 2010 report. The report sets out the long term sustainability vision and targets for the business for the next five to ten years.
Creating Shared Value encompasses Nestlé’s global belief that in order to enhance and protect its business it needs to go beyond compliance and sustainability in order to create new and greater value for its people, shareholders and society as a whole.
The targets cover the following areas: Nutrition, Health and Wellness, energy and emissions, water, waste, packaging, transport & distribution and sourcing.
The Nestlé in the UK and Ireland Creating Shared Value 2010 report can be accessed at www.nestle.co.uk.
For further information please call the Nestlé Press Office on 020 8667 6005 or email [email protected].