MillerCoors achieves landfill-free status at its largest US brewery
More than 135 tons of waste to be eliminated monthly
Chicago-based MillerCoors announced that its Golden Brewery in Golden, Colo., now is landfill-free. Building on its experience in making four of its other breweries landfill-free, this latest achievement means that one of the largest breweries in the United States eliminated an average of 135 tons of waste monthly that was previously sent to a landfill, according to the company.
Beginning in 2011, MillerCoors began reducing the municipal waste sent from the Golden Brewery to a landfill, complementing process improvements with nearly $1 million in new infrastructure and equipment, including new choppers, bailers and compactors, the company says. Now, the brewery beneficially reuses or recycles 100 percent of its waste, including all glass, paperboard, plastics, metal and brewing byproducts, such as spent grain, it says. Residual refuse, such as cafeteria waste and floor sweepings, is sent to a waste-to-energy facility where it’s used as an alternative fuel source to generate electricity, the company adds.