LP® Recycling
The Business of RecyclingReduce. Reuse. Rethink. Recycle. These are key elements in LP's pollution prevention program.
In 2004, LP recycled more than 1.85 million tons of material, mostly wood by-products. We continue to improve materials handling — enabling additional recycling — and concentrate on waste reduction through employee education and awareness training programs and process improvements. Our pollution prevention program includes waste management, recycling, and minimizing disposal.
Pollution prevention
is an essential focus of LP's environmental effort. Our waste includes not only ordinary trash, but also manufacturing byproducts such as bark, used oil, solvents, scrap metal, and boiler ash. Our goal is either to convert these waste products to energy or find a way to reduce, recycle or reuse them. Employee awareness and education continue to improve, which in turn improves waste management and recycling.
LP is able to use many of the byproducts generated by our manufacturing facilities for energy recovery. In 2004, more than 1.6 million tons of waste material generated onsite was used for energy recovery onsite at locations with that capability. This also represents a significant cost savings compared to the purchase of outside fuel sources. In 2005, we are expanding our corporate-wide tracking in this category to report on materials sent offsite for energy recovery. We hope to report this information to stakeholders in the near future.
Disposal volume comprises a very small percentage of LP's Waste Management and Recycling activities. In 2004, the amountof waste going to disposal or treatment, as a percentage of total waste management and recycling volumes tracked, was only 5% compared to more than 51% going to recycling activities and 44% used for onsite energy recovery.
Charts are based on structured estimates and are affected by corporate acquisitions, divestitures and facility closures.As part of our waste management efforts, we use many byproducts from our manufacturing processes in order to maximize our use of natural resources.
- Our Oriented Strand Board mills use their scraps as fuel in wood burners to heat wood dryers, which reduces the use of nonrenewable fuels such as oil or gas.
- Products produced at hardboard mills are made of wood fiber that are byproducts of other wood-product manufacturing operations, such as sawmills.
At LP, plant specific changes drive company-wide improvements.
- Environmental committees, such as the one at LP's Wilmington, North Carolina Engineered Wood facility have found recycling companies for material that would otherwise have been landfilled. Clean up crews have done an excellent job of keeping wastes segregated, allowing for more materials to be reused or recycled rather than landfilled.
- At Roxboro, North Carolina OSB, the facility reduced stencil paint use and waste 33% by implementing an improved maintenance program.
LP has been a corporate-wide member of the US EPA's WasteWise program since 1994.