Glen Raven Facilities Go Landfill-Free

Three of Glen Raven’s US facilities send zero waste to landfills, and the performance fabric company is “locking the dumpster” at a fourth location this month, Industry Week reports.

Randy Blackston, vice president of operations at Glen Raven Custom Fabrics, a business unit of the parent company, also tells the magazine that a new facility in a structure currently being renovated will begin operations as a zero waste to landfill location.

Glen Raven has reduced waste through several initiatives including:

• Placing cornstarch-based bags and lidded containers in the canteen to collect food scraps at its Anderson, S.C., plant. The compostable materials are then moved to an on-site composting location and used to fertilize the 180-acre site.
• Recycling oil, pallets, plastics and corrugated boards. Sunbrella Renaissance, one of Glen Raven’s brands, is composed in part of recycled Sunbrella fiber.

In March, Glen Raven Custom Fabrics said it became the first company to declare compliance under the NSF/ANSI 336 Sustainable Assessment for Commercial Furnishings Fabrics. The company said two of its Sunbrella contract fabrics have attained silver level compliance with the sustainability standard, adopted by the Association of Contract Textiles (ACT) in 2011.

The latest EL Insights report covers companies’ push towards zero waste and zero-waste-to-landfill, and includes the following brands and organizations: General Motors, Kraft, Hasbro, Supervalu, Clorox, PepsiCo, US Postal Service, Ford, London 2012 Olympics, City of San Francisco, Kimberly-Clark, Fruit of the Loom, Sonoco, Hershey, Boeing, Waitrose, Scotts Miracle Gro, SCA, Caterpillar, EPA, UL Environment, Zero Waste International Alliance, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Honda of America and DuPont Building Innovations.