Unilever Brand Achieves Zero-Landfill Goal
Unilever announces that its Lipton Tea manufacturing plant in Suffolk, Va., the largest tea processing facility in the United States, has achieved its goal of becoming a "zero-landfill" facility. The Suffolk plant sends no waste to landfills by processing all of its waste through its aggressive recycling and composting programs and converting some of it into usable energy.
"We are proud to add yet another asset to the Lipton sustainability profile, helping to make the brand even 'greener' from leaf to cup," says Ted Narozny, Suffolk plant manager. "Our efforts are an extension of the overall commitment we at Unilever have -- 'doing well by doing good.' In addition to further reducing our environmental impact, we are also able to save in operating costs -- another benefit of doing well by doing good."
The Lipton facility's achievement also allows the plant team to conserve:
- 16 tons of plastic, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 13.76 tons
- 21,182 mature trees, the equivalent of 262 million sheets of newspaper
- 576,898 gallons of oil, enough to heat and cool 2,856 homes for a year
- 29,904 gallons of gasoline, enough to drive more than 837,000 miles in the average American car
- 8,722,000 gallons of water, enough to meet the daily fresh water needs of 116,293 Americans
- 5,108,600 kilowatt hours of electricity, or a year's supply of power for more than 425 average homes
The Suffolk plant's achievement of its zero-landfill goal is the latest sustainability-focused initiative from Lipton. Earlier this year, the brand announced a commitment to source all of its tea for its tea bags from Rainforest Alliance Certified-farms by 2015 and has operated a sustainable tea cultivation estate in Kericho, Kenya since 2007.
"We are proud to add yet another asset to the Lipton sustainability profile, helping to make the brand even 'greener' from leaf to cup," says Ted Narozny, Suffolk plant manager. "Our efforts are an extension of the overall commitment we at Unilever have -- 'doing well by doing good.' In addition to further reducing our environmental impact, we are also able to save in operating costs -- another benefit of doing well by doing good."
The Lipton facility's achievement also allows the plant team to conserve:
- 16 tons of plastic, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 13.76 tons
- 21,182 mature trees, the equivalent of 262 million sheets of newspaper
- 576,898 gallons of oil, enough to heat and cool 2,856 homes for a year
- 29,904 gallons of gasoline, enough to drive more than 837,000 miles in the average American car
- 8,722,000 gallons of water, enough to meet the daily fresh water needs of 116,293 Americans
- 5,108,600 kilowatt hours of electricity, or a year's supply of power for more than 425 average homes
The Suffolk plant's achievement of its zero-landfill goal is the latest sustainability-focused initiative from Lipton. Earlier this year, the brand announced a commitment to source all of its tea for its tea bags from Rainforest Alliance Certified-farms by 2015 and has operated a sustainable tea cultivation estate in Kericho, Kenya since 2007.