SC Johnson earns corporate citizenship honor for recycling program

Reuben Smith-Vaughan, executive director of the AACCLA, presents Kelly M. Semrau, senior vice president, global corporate affairs, communication and sustainability, SC Johnson, the 2016 Western Hemisphere Corporate Citizenship Award.

SC Johnson, headquartered in Racine, Wisconsin, has received the 2016 Western Hemisphere Corporate Citizenship Award from the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America & the Caribbean (AACCLA) for the company’s “SCJ Recycles” program in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship Awards honor businesses for their positive impacts in communities around the world.

As one of the region’s primary metal aerosol can producers, SC Johnson says it built a recycling program that led to better, more efficient metal can recycling and that provides an improved working environment for employees at waste separation facilities. 

SCJ Recycles is a system that allows waste workers to separate aerosol cans from other recyclables, empty the remaining contents and then crush the cans in a compactor for efficient handling and transportation to processors.

In addition to the ongoing recycling system, more than 5,500 students and adults in the local communities participated in SCJ Recycles educational workshops meant to stimulate recycling habits and provide sustainability know-how, according to the company.

To date, SC Johnson employees, families and friends have volunteered in more than 30 of the community educational workshops and programss.

“SCJ Recycles is one of the many ways we try to do the right thing,” says H. Fisk Johnson, chairman and CEO of SC Johnson. “It’s about being responsible, ethical and mindful that we are all part of something bigger. We are honored and humbled that the program is being acknowledged with this award.”

The AACCLA presented SC Johnson with the 2016 Western Hemisphere Corporate Citizen Award at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 17th Annual Corporate Citizenship Awards Gala, held Nov. 17 in Washington.

SC Johnson has 13,000 employees in more than 70 countries.