Waste is usually disposed of in four ways: recycling, compost, incineration or landfill. […]

The company recently announced that 45 of their facilities have now achieved zero manufacturing waste to landfill. Over the past five years, P&G’s work to find worth in waste has created over $1 billion in value for the company.

Material that was once sent for disposal is now sold as a raw material to an alternative use partner wherever possible. For instance, excess floss is repurposed in Mexico as the filling in pillows that are used to clean up industrial spills. At a U.S. Pampers site, scrap from the wipe manufacturing process is converted to upholstery filling. And in the UK, waste created in the production of Gillette shaving foam is composted then used to grow turf for commercial uses.

Packaging reduction

“We’re innovating to limit the amount of waste that even has the opportunity to enter a landfill by reducing our packaging,” McDougall said. “In fact, each of our product categories is committed to a 20% packaging reduction by 2020.”

External partnerships are a key part of the company’s packaging efforts to reduce material usage and increase recycled content in its products.