MillerCoors achieves landfill-free status at all major breweries

MillerCoors, with corporate headquarters in Chicago, has announced all of its major breweries are now landfill-free, with the Fort Worth Brewery in Texas as the latest site to reach this milestone. MillerCoors says it has remained an industry leader in waste reduction since its first brewery reached landfill-free status in 2011 by leveraging key learnings and the passion of its people to brew beer more sustainably.

“We are committed to finding innovative ways to build on our heritage of brewing high-quality beer sustainably. It is one of our driving priorities in creating America’s best beer company,” says Gavin Hattersley, MillerCoors CEO. “We didn’t reach this milestone overnight nor can we attribute success to one department, one brewery or one employee. The entire MillerCoors family is committed to ensuring a sustainable future for our company and the communities in which we work and live.”

MillerCoors Fort Worth Brewery in Texas reduced waste by 66 percent in 2015 compared to 2014. The brewery engaged a Sustainability Employee Council to lead education initiatives throughout the facility, focusing on changing employee behaviors by making recycling easier and more accessible. Nearly 100 percent of brewery waste is recycled or reused, with the small amount of remaining waste going to a waste-to-energy facility, a best practice across MillerCoors.

The brewer’s journey to landfill-free operations began in 2009, when the company set a goal to reduce brewery waste by 15 percent by 2015. MillerCoors’ Trenton, Ohio, Brewery was its first landfill-free location. Trenton’s best practices have provided the foundation for implementing landfill-free processes throughout MillerCoors other major breweries. Since 2009, MillerCoors has reduced its waste across the organization by 89 percent, equal to keeping more than 9 million pounds of waste out of local landfills.

“As we continue our journey to brew a sustainable future, maintaining landfill-free operations at all our major breweries will make a significant impact,” says Kim Marotta, MillerCoors director of sustainability. “While we continuously strive to reduce waste, we will also remain focused on our other sustainability priorities, including preventing drunk driving, further decreasing our water use, lowering our carbon emissions, and making greater investment in our people and our communities.”

Achieving landfill-free operations at all major breweries is not the end of MillerCoors commitment to waste reduction. By 2020, the brewer aims to achieve landfill-free operations at all its major manufacturing sites in the U.S. 

More information on MillerCoors’ waste reduction efforts and details on its sustainability strategy and 2020 goals, are available www.millercoors.com/sustainability.

In an interview with the Recycling Today Media Group’s Kristin Smith during the 2015 Renewable Energy from Waste Conference, Audrey Templeton, corporate environmental manager for MillerCoors, discusses several acheivements the brewing company has made in its efforts to reduce waste.