Oregon DEQ: Land Quality - Solid Waste - Commercial Waste Reduction Clearinghouse - Success Stories

Warehousing/Distribution

Business: Bergen Brunswig Medical (Tigard)

Number of Employees: 40

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Bergen Brunswig Medical’s Tigard office and warehouse provides medical and surgical supplies to more than 1,000 hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and medical offices.

Reuses vendor supply boxes to ship orders to customers. Empty supply boxes are stored near the product re-packing area for convenient reuse. This has reduced the purchase of new shipping boxes by two-thirds. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: $22,500/year, plus reduced staff time for assembling new boxes and recycling. RESOURCE SAVINGS: 30,000 pounds of paper boxes/year.

Eliminated the purchase of polystyrene packing "peanuts" and paper dunnage for packing. Shipping boxes are packed with shredded paper from the accounting office and newspaper supplied by employees. Any "peanuts" received are reused. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: $5,000/year. RESOURCE SAVINGS: 12,000 pounds of paper/year, plus "peanuts."

Two-thirds of all pallets received are reused for large-volume orders. Other pallets are sold to a company that repairs and resells them. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: $36,700/year. RESOURCE SAVINGS: 120+ tons/year.

Recycles office paper and purchases green-bar computer paper made with recycled content.

Case Study

Case study exists, call Metro, 503-234-3000.

Business: BMC West Building Materials (Beaverton)

Number of Employees: unknown

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BMC West supplies building materials to contractors and homeowners.

Metal banding on shipments of lumber is cut and then stored for reuse. The banding is rolled and stored on the back of forklifts or in a box in the customer loading area. To use smaller pieces of banding, a crimper and clips are used to join material of the same width into pieces of sufficient length. BMC uses a style of banding gun that can be adjusted to fit a variety of widths. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: $2,000/year.

Doors arrive layered between thin plywood sheets (skins) and stacked on pallets. BMC West initiated a process to return the skins and pallets to the door distributor for reuse.

Pallets are returned to distributors whenever possible. Damaged pallets are donated to a local supplier.

Some plastic wrap on incoming loads of lumber is saved and reused on outgoing customer loads. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: more than $500/year.

Usable scrap and defective wood is sorted, banded into bundles of mixed types and sold at a discount.

The paint department buys back clean five-gallon paint buckets from contractors. These are sold to retail customers for mixing paint.

Case Study

Case study exists, call Metro, 503-234-3000.

Business: Computer Renaissance (Corvallis)

Number of Employees: 4

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Repaired a toilet leak. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: $192/year. RESOURCE SAVINGS: 67,300 gallons/year.

Installed faucet aerator on employee sink. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: $5/year. RESOURCE SAVINGS: 1,750 gallons/year.

Set unoccupied heat/cool on thermostat to 55/85 degrees Fahrenheit.

Turn off all computers and monitors at night. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: $191/year. RESOURCE SAVINGS: 3,475 kWh/year.

Case Study

None

Business: Delta Engineering and Manufacturing (Tualatin)

Number of Employees: unknown

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Delta Engineering manufactures and assembles precision custom sheet metal parts for its customers.

Created a "closed-loop system" for some transport packaging. By convincing a customer to use a local vendor for an interim manufacturing step, Delta Engineering was able to create custom packaging to ship sheet metal parts. The second vendor inserts additional components, then ships the completed assembly to the end customer. The durable cardboard packaging is returned to Delta Engineering and is reused at least 10 times before being recycled. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: more than $50,000/year.

Modular wheeled metal racks are used for parts delivery to a local customer. Large parts are loaded onto multi-layered racks, covered with reusable protectors and secured with flexible cords. Racks are delivered directly to the customer’s assembly area and empty racks are brought back to Delta Engineering.

The closure for a specific cardboard box was changed from tape and staples to Velcro. The improved carton is returned to Delta Engineering and reused for two to three years before being recycled.

Delta Engineering designed and built reusable containers to ship one of its products to a customer. After shipment, the customized containers are returned to Delta Engineering. The cardboard and wood containers are reused as many as 130 times.

Manufacturing areas that have the highest cleanliness requirements receive new cardboard sheets used to separate and protect parts during manufacturing. Slightly used separators are passed on to other work areas with decreasing requirements for cleanliness.

Foam pads, similar to the cardboard sheets, are also used several times, including shipments to customers. Pads are returned to Delta Engineering when possible.

Pallets are reused on site and returned to suppliers for reuse when possible.

Case Study

Case study exists, call Metro, 503-234-3000.

Business: Rogue Wave Software (Corvallis)

Number of Employees: 175

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Rogue Wave Software develops, markets, and ships computer software products that support software libraries for computer programmers and math experts. The company has implemented several efficiencies in its product packaging:

Previously, each product (which might consist of several disks and manuals) was packed in a small corrugated cardboard box. Since many of Rogue Wave’s customers order more than one product at a time, these small boxes were then consolidated into one or more larger boxes. Under the new system, manuals and disks are shrink-wrapped together, eliminating the smaller boxes. This has reduced the weight of packaging sent to customers by an estimated 68% and significantly reduces staff time. FINANCIAL SAVINGS (packaging only): $21,000/year. RESOURCE SAVINGS: 26,200 pounds of packaging/year.

All manual sizes have been standardized, eliminating the guesswork which was previously involved in trying to find the most efficient way to place manuals in the shipping boxes.

A "box sizer" is used to adjust box height to fit the content, eliminating the need to stuff the tops of boxes with protective packaging.

The purchase agreement for each program is printed directly onto the envelope used to protect the disk, eliminating the need for a separate piece of paper.

Some boxes received from the company’s printer are reused to ship large orders of manuals.

Case Study

Case study exists.

Business: Stahlbush Island Farms, Inc.

Number of Employees: 22

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Stahlbush Island Farms is a grower and processor of fruits and vegetables. Most of the company’s customers are large food product manufacturers.

Water use has been reduced by more than 50%, due to an innovative system where water is used in three or four different applications. Water is used to cool hot pumpkin puree and compressor oil, and to condense ammonia refrigerant. The warmed water is then used to pre-heat both the boiler and pumpkins. Wastewater from pumpkin and equipment washing is applied to fields for irrigation.

Timers were installed on fan motors in freezers so that fans don’t run all of the time. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: $4,500/year. RESOURCE SAVINGS: 133,000 kWh/year.

As targeted motors wear out, they are replaced with high-efficiency motors. FINANCIAL SAVINGS: when fully implemented, this will save $2,300/year in electric bills. RESOURCE SAVINGS: 50,000 kWh/year.

Only "natural" (uncolored) five gallon HDPE plastic pails are used. These pails are easier for customers to recycle.

Ammonia compressor head pressure and boiler pressure have been adjusted to conserve energy.

The farm composts food scraps and is experimenting with using food scraps as cattle feed.

Some bulk products are shipped in reconditioned drums.

Corrugated cardboard boxes and office paper are recycled.

Case Study

Case study exists.

Business: United Grocers

Number of Employees: unknown

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Member stores of the United Grocers cooperative routinely return unsold produce to the warehouse. Most is edible. The warehouse used to pay a hefty bill to landfill this material until the produce manager invited restaurant buyers to bargain for it each morning. The result: big savings for United Grocers and the restaurants.

Whole pallets have always been sent to a repair service for reconditioning.

Pieces of pallets are placed in wood waste totes placed around the warehouse. The scrap wood is then consolidated in a drop box which is collected by a private company who uses the wood scraps to repair other pallets.

Case Study

Call Metro, 503-234-3000.