Corporate Environmental Stewardship

Corporate Environmental Stewardship

Waste Management (WM) and Wheelabrator carry out the business of managing waste not just with a deep sense of responsibility toward the environment, but with a realization of the daily opportunity to impact the environment in a positive, productive way. It is an opportunity embraced with a sense of pride and purpose.

In this light, WM has outlined four areas for building up on the companies current environmental stewardship initiatives. The following goals serve as a platform for sustainable growth from today until the year 2020:

• Increase the company’s waste-based energy production from the current equivalent of powering 1 million homes per year to more than 2 million homes per year.
• Increase the volume of recyclable materials processed yearly from the 8 million tons managed today to more than 20 million tons yearly.
• Invest up to $500 million per annum to cleaner technologies over the next 10 year to increase the vehicle fleet’s fuel efficiency by 15% and reduce fleet emissions by 15%
• Increase the number of Wildlife Habitat Council-certified facilities from 24 to 100, expanding the area set aside for conservation and wildlife habitat from 17,000 acres to 25,000 acres.
   

Waste-Based Energy Production

Wheelabrator's Waste-To-Energy process is environmentally friendly and provides a clean, readily available, and green alternative to fossil fuels. Wheelabrator's plants have the capacity to generate more than 600 megawatts of clean, renewable energy - enough to power 700,000 homes and save more than 7 million barrel of oil per year. In addition, Wheelabrator annually recovers over 100,000 tons of iron, steel, and other material from the combustion residue, which is then recycled back into new steel. These recycling efforts save energy and conserves resources including iron and coal.

 

Environmental Education

In 1994, Wheelabrator created The Environmental Symposium, an annual educational program designed to increase environmental and social awareness among middle school students. This competitive event involves 200 students and 30 teachers from schools in eight states. The student teams focus on developing long-term solution to local environmental challenges and presenting their ideas to community leaders. To date, the program has awarded more than $125, 000 to participating schools in conjunction with the program.

 

Habitat Conservation

Wheelabrator’s sites provide safe harbor for threatened or endangered species of plants and animals. These projects also server to broaden understanding of wildlife values through the incorporation of environmental education, volunteer participation, and community outreach programs. These habitats are carefully managed in partnership with conservationists, universities, and environmental groups.

 

Long-Range Plans

Wheelabrator has researched deeply into the ecological foundation to establish long term habitat and wildlife goals. The site managment practices include innovationve methodolities for prodiving endangereed species with habitat, and the reintrodcution of endangered plants into the restored habitats.  As the Sancutary matures, the more conprehensive the endangered species program will become.