Michigan-based Cascade reaches zero waste in effort to improve its footprint

As the automotive industry is still in early stages of designing for recyclability and examining the life cycle of its products, plastics suppliers are looking to be leaders in creating zero waste workplaces as they support research and development for more sustainable practices for the industry.

Grand Rapids, Mich.-based automotive injection molder Cascade Engineering reached a zero-waste-to-landfill status at one of its facilities in 2012, Christina Keller, president and CEO, said during Plastics News' Plastics in Automotive conference on May 26.

Since 2002, the company has decreased its landfill costs from almost $270,000 per year to $0 since 2012, Keller said.

Before making the "big leap" to zero waste, Cascade changed many policies and procedures and set large, five-year objectives and many smaller one-year goals on it's journey, she said.

"We didn't get there in one year. It took many years and many second and third tries," Keller said.

Along the way, it got rid of trash compactors and freed up dock space, found a compost system to collect food scraps from break rooms and began using trash as a feedstock for plastic products.

Custom compounding solved many common issues with using recycled materials like flow inconsistencies, contamination and material performance consistency, she said.

Keller suggested suppliers begin their sustainability efforts by analyzing waste streams through an audit to profile garbage and document key waste streams and quantify the materials in terms of weight and dollars.

Suppliers should also "simply" start recycling both in factories and office settings, she said.

"Find partners that might be able to take your product and use it for their processes," Keller said. "If you're producing a lot of plastic scrap, are you recycling or regrinding that product? If your primary waste stream is paper, how do you reduce paper use or set up paper recycling?"

Cascade started a neighborhood recycling center in one of its facilities to take in recycled and donated items like eyeglasses, pens and pencils, clothing and books, becoming a "go-to" recycling point for their employees and their families and a worthwhile stop from recyclers with a higher volume of certain items to recover.

"Data suggests that, in 2021 alone, [Cascade] can remove 2.2 million pounds from waste and recycling streams," she said.

As a certified B corporation, a distinction only recognized in some U.S. states, Cascade is "trying to put visibility on the metrics around [the] social and environmental" effects of the industry, she said.

To qualify, an organization must "adjust or amend [its] bylaws for the benefit of all stakeholders, not just [its] financial shareholders," Keller said, "which is a difficult thing to do as a publicly traded company. But as a privately held organization, you can make those relatively easily."

"That actually protects the leader to be able to make trade-off decisions that might be better more long term and better for the community," she added. "Ideally, we're not having trade-offs; we're having win-wins. But to the extent you do have [trade-offs], it really protects the leadership team to make decisions that are for the benefit of all stakeholders in the community."

"With China putting up a green wall against receiving recycled plastic," Keller said, the world faces a waste problem. "Trash is accumulating and being stored on the earth's surfaces at an increasing pace. … In some cases, we are even landfilling our recycled plastics domestically.

"Two billion tons of municipal solid waste are produced annually, and we cannot continue that trajectory forever," she said. "Even a small step as an industry toward zero waste and a circular economy could have a huge impact on our environment, the brand of durable plastics manufacturing and our ability to attract and retain the next generation of talent."

Companies striving to effectively reduce harm on the environment by producing less waste will save money and resources and "can ultimately fuel an organization's growth," Keller said.

"When it comes to the environment, plastics has a brand problem," she said. "If we want to have any hope of filling our skilled labor shortage near term," the plastics industry needs to become a leader in the circular economy.

"Sustainability is a collaborative journey, and it takes all of us," Keller said. "Unfortunately we often stay … driven by different goals and objectives. As a corporation, we are beholden to our shareholders who are focused on next quarter's financial returns and our customers who often can't see the social environmental attributes and just want lower prices.

"Governmental bodies are focused on voter and election cycles and become increasingly extreme as elections approach," she added. "Not-for-profits are often focused on their own individual issues, not able to provide a singular holistic voice as an industry.

"Together we have an opportunity to solve a huge world problem of waste by … designing out waste and pollution from our systems and processes," Keller said. "By reducing our waste flow and environmental impact, we can help our natural systems regenerate."