Haworth
In 1980 Haworth opened and was quick to become an office furniture manufacturer that hoped to help sustain the planet. For years they recycled and called it good business sense. It wasn't until 1993 that they opened a recycling center and processed 18 million pounds in the first two years. Haworth is a global industry and has plants in Germany, Portugal, China, India, and more. In North America, they have been zero waste to landfill since 2009, and zero waste to landfill in Europe as of 2012. This means that Haworth works to recycle anything and everything. This one recycling center processes material for 12 of their manufacturing facilities. They can take metal, cardboard, plastics, fabric, and anything you can think of. Even the wood waste doesn’t go to the landfill at this recycling center. Over ten years of recycling has earned them over 50 million pounds of material saved from the landfill and this is just the beginning for Haworth.
Success for the recycling center has a lot to do with the plants and the ways Haworth helps them reduce waste streams. First, they started a program to track all commodities to help reduction. Next, each plant has recycling champions and these people have meetings every other month with the recycling center to improve their recycling programs. Each plant is driven through the recycling center and Haworth provides them with the information they need to help reduce.
Haworth understands their sustainability goal and even tries to help other organizations achieve theirs as well. Some areas only have one place for something to go, so there is a need to expand the market for recycled goods. Right Place out of Grand Rapids partners with Haworth to help businesses improve and become zero waste. Haworth also helps nonprofits in different ways, through recycling, as well. At each plant, they have containers to separately collect bottles and cans that are recyclable and ones that can be deposited. Each month United Way Umbrella collects the deposit cans and bottles and donates the money to a different nonprofit each month. Nonprofits and employees also can utilize all aspects of the recycle center. Haworth does all they can to help grow their recycling center and help provide companies and organizations with the resources they need to recycle to the best of their ability.