Aaron Thomas Company is proud of the conscious steps we have made in reducing our impact on the environment and for serving as a model of environmental change in our industry. Our policy on advancing environmental efforts includes many areas of operation, including:
Lean to the Green
Aaron Thomas Company continues to reduce its carbon footprint by making decisions regarding infrastructure and equipment that directly reduce energy consumption. Capital purchases to retrofit offices and factories with high efficiency T5 lighting, and equipping facilities with the latest technology air supply units are examples. While the return of these hardware investments is far into the future in economic terms, we gain immediate returns for reaching our energy saving goals.
Employee Engagement
Engagement goes beyond typical environmentally related training elements such as spill control, chemical usage, and identification of potential waste streams.
In fact, the greatest innovations on internal recycling efforts were formulated from the production floor. For example, a team of internal housekeepers were commissioned to get our ‘landfill to recycle’ numbers down from a 6% to a 5.5%, much to the pleasure of management, their ideas and implementation took us beyond target to 4.8%.
It was also a brainstorming collaboration of ideas from the employees that created our custom-made pallet straps. Challenged with saving thousands of pounds per year in plastic wrap for our internal warehouse movements, the ATCO Pallet Strap came to fruition. Stakeholders were quick to finance the employee’s concept that pitted a reusable band against roll after roll of consumable stretch film. Investing the hard dollars up front for a long-term return of savings on petrochemical consumables.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
We pride ourselves on reaching, then exceeding targets for recycling. Sorting and recycling the typical fare of plastics, metals, and corrugate materials tend to be wash for the labor invested. Yet, other streams have their reward in non-economic benefits. For example, wood scraps from broken pallets are now collected and sent to a compost processor where they are ground into mulch for flowerbeds. While excess and discontinued items of packaged foods are prepared, stored, and sent to certified client-approved food banks, many items that cannot make the grade for human consumption are hauled at our expense to a feed lot for animals to consume.
