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Alameda County Businesses Save Money With Sustainability

Special to The Emeryville Connection
January 2008

Th e StopWaste Partnership has

helped many Alameda County businesses

save money while improving the

environment. Ranging from grants, to

business effi ciency evaluations, Stop-

Waste’s environmental experts off er free

assistance to help businesses become

more sustainable. Th e award-winning

team has assisted hundreds of companies

in over 40 industries to prevent

waste, decrease operating expenses and

complete cutting-edge, practical steps

to save money.

Th e StopWaste Partnership helps

businesses recycle all kinds of materials,

from mixed paper to more obscure

items, such as burlap. StopWaste has

also teamed up with hotels to help

them save thousands of dollars by

recycling and donating materials, collecting

newspapers from guestrooms,

cardboard and mixed paper from offi

ces and supply rooms, and beverage

containers from throughout the hotel.

Even food scraps are being composted

rather than shipped to landfi lls at a

reduced rate over traditional garbage

collection.

Here’s a roundup of some recent

successes:

Peerless Coff ee Company in Oakland

saves $110,000 a year through recycling

and waste prevention programs.

Th e StopWaste Partnership helped

Peerless reduce its waste by more than

85 percent through enhancements to

computerized packaging machines,

composting the outside skin of coff ee

beans and setting up recycling programs.

Emeryville Public Market/TMG

Partners has implemented a food scrap

recovery program for the 20 restaurants

located on-site. Th rough their diligent

eff orts they have cut their garbage collection

in half. In early 2008 the program

will expand to the public areas of

the market, where many vendors have

already switched over to compostable

utensils and plates.

Ghirardelli Chocolate Company

in San Leandro received a StopWaste

Business Waste Prevention grant that

enabled it to switch from cardboard

boxes to reusable plastic totes. Th is

saves the company $520,000 annually

and signifi cantly reduced the amount

of broken chocolate, while eliminating

350 tons of cardboard waste each

year.

Hilton Garden Inn in Emeryville

has reduced its waste by setting up

recycling containers for mixed paper

and containers throughout the

hotel, and collecting over 4.5 tons

per month of food scraps from the

kitchen for composting.

East Bay Regional Park District

implemented a paper use reduction

program with funds from the

StopWaste Partnership. Th e District

increasingly uses electronic forms,

which led to the streamlining of

labor-intensive tasks, saved $10,000

annually and also eliminates 11 tons

of paper waste each year.

Pechiney Plastic Packaging adopted

a waste prevention practice that saves

them $165,000 and reduces plastic

fi lm consumption by 150 tons each

year. Several other steps, including

plastic and mixed paper recycling programs

and a streamlined, labor-saving

process for recycling cardboard, qualifi

ed them for funding that further

reduced their garbage bill by $12,000.

About StopWaste Partnership:

Th e Stop Waste Partnership, a

program of StopWaste.Org, is a free,

non-regulatory assistance program

that helps Alameda County businesses

save money and improve effi ciency

by implementing environmental programs.

Services provided by the Stop

Waste Partnership include: expert

technical assistance, funding for recycling

and waste prevention activities,

identifi cation of service providers

for materials recovery, free how-to

guides and other resources, and public

recognition for proactive companies.

Medium and large companies in Alameda

County can benefi t from the

full suite of services, and even small

companies can take advantage of free

online resources and phone assistance

from Partnership staff .

If you would like help making

your business more sustainable, call

(877) STOPWASTE, visit them at

www.StopWastePartnership.org, or

e-mail Partnership@stopwaste.org.