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Smithfield Foods, Inc. is the world’s largest producer of pork products. In 2003, the company set a corporate-wide goal of registering all its facilities to the global ISO 14001 standard for Environmental Management Systems (EMS). EMSs require facilities to assess their total environmental impacts and commit to a process of continual improvement in addressing significant impacts. The ISO certification process is conducted by an accredited third-party auditor who verifies that the facility has mechanisms in place to ensure and move beyond environmental compliance.
On April 27, 2005, Smithfield announced that it achieved its goal and became the first in its industry to achieve ISO 14001 certification for all its U.S. hog production and processing facilities. “Earning ISO 14001 environmental certification is a major accomplishment for Smithfield and our dedicated employees,” said Dennis Treacy, vice president of environmental, community and government affairs for Smithfield Foods.
The annual EMS process of planning, implementing, and reviewing environmental impacts has led to a number of pollution prevention success stories at Smithfield’s facilities. The Landover, Maryland packaging facility, which ships 450,000 pounds of ham products per day, set an ambitious course for the first year of its EMS and the work is already paying off in terms of waste reduction and costs savings.
The Landover EMS Team started by identifying activities at their facility that could impact the environment and then scored them based on their significance. From this list, they identified the areas they would address in the first year. First-year projects included initiating plastic recycling, increasing paper recycling, reducing cardboard, netting, and plastic packaging waste, identifying energy and water conservation measures, and upgrading their pretreatment system.
The results are impressive. The re-design of their cardboard boxes will eliminate 4.3 million pounds of cardboard material per year. Their plastic recycling efforts will keep 32 tons of plastic from the landfill each month, saving them at least $100,000 per year in waste disposal costs from plastic recycling. As Bill Jones, Plant Manager of the Landover Division, points out when reviewing environmental initiatives, “As a plant manager, you always ask, ‘Is this going to cost us a fortune?’ My response is that these measures have saved us a fortune.”
As Smithfield’s Landover facility heads into its second year of EMS implementation, they are undertaking additional projects including the minimization of soil loss and stormwater runoff reduction measures.
Smithfield Transportation Company, based in Smithfield, Va., also has a promising project underway that should be of great interest to long haul trucking companies. The company is employing auxiliary power units, or APUs, in its trucks to reduce idling time and associated vehicle emissions. With APUs, truck drivers can regulate the temperature of their cabin during breaks without running the engine. Use of an APU, can reduce emissions by 82 percent over idling while also reducing fuel costs and engine wear. More information can be found at:
www.eere.energy.gov/cleancities/idle/apu.html.
For more information on joining Businesses for the Bay, call 1-800-YOURBAY, ext. 719, or visit www.b4bay.org. For more information on pollution prevention and EMS assistance, contact MDE Pollution Prevention Coordinator Laura Armstrong, at (410) 537-4119, or
Laura.Armstrong@maryland.gov.
To see previous Businesses for the Bay member spotlights, go to: www.mde.state.md.us/BusinessInfoCenter /PollutionPrevention
/P2/profiles/profile_chart.asp
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