Brunswick’s Fort Wayne operations achieve ‘Zero Waste to Landfill’ designation

Brunswick Corporation announced that its Fort Wayne Operations is its first boat manufacturing facility to achieve Zero Waste to Landfill status. This accomplishment represents a significant milestone in Brunswick’s ongoing campaign to advance its sustainability mission.

The Zero Waste to Landfill designation process requires the facility to demonstrate that 90% of its waste materials are being recycled, reused, or otherwise eliminated. The Fort Wayne team not only achieved the required levels but exceeded them with a 97% diversion rate in the most recent measure

 “This is only the beginning of our sustainability journey,” said Aaron Martin, Fort Wayne Environmental, Health and Safety manager leading the initiative. “We are thrilled to achieve Zero Waste to Landfill status, but we want to be the most sustainable pontoon builder in the world and we are working hard to achieve our goal.”

Brunswick’s Fort Wayne facility is home to its Harris and Cypress Cay pontoon manufacturing as well as the Brunswick Pontoon Technology Center.

Some of the many examples of sustainability success that led to the Zero Waste to Landfill status include:

• Rather than dispose of wood scrap from deck boards, the facility reused scrap on-site to build materials that are used in shipping new pontoons.  One element of the program is working with suppliers to take back their dunnage for reuse
• Harris designed new cutting patterns to yield more usable material and less scrap from each aluminum sheet, reducing scrap per sheet by 80% on some components and allowing more parts to be produced in less time.
• Major capital improvements also paid dividends. A new air compressor system to power the factory’s equipment and tools replaced an older water-cooled system, saving nearly 10 million gallons of water — the equivalent of nearly 15 Olympic-sized swimming pools — per year.

A task force charged with achieving the Zero Waste to Landfill designation undertook a months-long process of defining standards, identifying measurements of waste output, and enhancing initiatives that focus on reducing, reusing and recycling materials. To define Zero Waste to Landfill in the manufacturing and warehousing context, the team adopted a definition set forth by the U.S. Zero Waste Business Council and Zero Waste International Alliance.

Waste streams addressed throughout the manufacturing process include plastic, paper, cardboard, wood, vinyl flooring, metal and aluminum.  The Fort Wayne team developed procedures for ongoing monitoring and measuring of these waste-stream materials generated as a result of the plant’s operations, and of the amount of these materials moved into the proper processes of reuse and recycling.

The Fort Wayne team plans to celebrate this success in the comings weeks and for each month that they continue meeting their diversion rate, the team has committed to planting a tree around the facility to further emphasize their commitment to being socially responsible.