Case Study 4: Alcoa KAMA.A company that makes plastic salad trays, sandwich boxes and supermarket vegetable packaging has turned its waste into a profitable part of the business while significantly reducing its reliance on landfill. Alcoa KAMA Kama (kä`mə), river, c.1,260 mi (2,030 km) long, E European Russia, the chief left tributary of the Volga. It rises in the foothills of the central Urals and flows N, then E, and then SW past Perm, Sarapul, and Chistopol to join the Volga in Sedgefield is the world's largest producer of light gauge material for the thermoforming industry and has one of the most comprehensive ranges of thermoform products on the market. The company turned to CLEMANCE (Clean Environment Management Centre) at Teesside University, the regional co-ordinator of the National Industrial Symbiosis Industrial Symbiosis Industrial Symbiosis is a type of eco-industrial development which is an application of the concept of industrial ecology. Industrial ecology is a relatively new field that is based on the ideology of nature. Programme (NISP NISP National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (UK) NISP National Industrial Security Program NISP Neutron Instrument Simulation Package NISP National Individual Security Program NISP Nutrition Services Incentive Program ), which is helping to revolutionise the way industry deals with waste and energy issues. By working together they are aiming to half the amount of waste sent to landfill at Coxhoe by 2007. Already CLEMANCE has managed to facilitate a number of meetings with recycling outlets. As a result it has identified a company which would take office paper, toner cartridges and drinks cans for a nominal fee, as well as generating an income for Alcoa in the region of pounds 1.3m per year from polymer waste, cardboard boxes and reel cores. Contracts were put in place and the following month the waste sent to landfill was reduced by 90%. |
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