McKee wins recycling award

Gentry plant wins statewide corporate recycler of the year award.

— McKee Foods Corporation located in Gentry was the recipient of Arkansas Recycling Coalition 2012 Corporate Recycler of the Year Award.

The award recognizes businesses or organizations that have developed successful waste reduction programs which include source reduction, beneficial reuse, landfill diversion, sustainable recycling practices and the purchase of recycled/recyclable products for their office and/or manufacturing operations.

The award presentation was held at the Robinson Center, Little Rock, on Sept. 13, during the Arkansas Recycling Coalition’s 22nd Annual Conference & Trade Show. The educational event attracts approximately 300 reduce, reuse, recycle, and sustainability professionals from around the state and nation each year.

The Gentry Green Team was started in the 1990s and resurrected in 2007 by five employees who were concerned about landfill waste volume. They began to explore ways to reduce, reuse and recycle to conserve natural resources and to explore any financial opportunities associated with such activities.

With support from company management, the Gentry Green Team initially set a goal of 35 percent waste reduction by January 2009, then expanded its members and continued to “raise the bar” on waste reduction to 70 percent by August 2009 and, ultimately, 100 percent, which was achieved when the last dumpsterto the local landfill left the facility in October 2011.

Now designated a zerolandfill-waste site, the Gentry plant’s formerly discarded waste is now recycled as appropriate, processed into animal feed products or collected and processed by a third-party company that focuses on developing energy-from-waste solutions.

On hand to accept the award from ARC’s Awards Chairman Bobby Fanning was Jim Twiggs, accompanied by other Gentry Green Team members, Bob Tharp, John Sorrells, Joy Murphy, Roger Marrs, Joel Cavness, Bill Eby and Wyman Okuma.

Other award winners were AR National Guard - Camp Robinson (North Little Rock) for Government Recycler of the Year; Carroll County Solid Waste Authority (Eureka Springs) and Cross County Special Workshop (Wynne) for Recycling Education Program of the Year; eSCO Processing & Recycling (Rogers) for Community Involvement Award; and Carl Davis, Davis Iron & Metal (Fort Smith), for Individual Recycler of the Year. A Distinguished Service Award was presented to Don Curran, Virco Manufacturing Corporation, for his many years of dedicated service to ARC and the community.

Award Sponsors for this year’s event included Delta Plastics of Little Rock, UNICOR Federal Prison System of Texarkana, Texas, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control (E. Camden, ORE-Recovered Materials of Clinton, and Regional Recycling & Waste Reduction District in Little Rock.

Founded in 1989, the ARC unites companies, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and individuals in a common effort to promote reduce, reuse, recycle and sustainability as a primarymeans of waste management in Arkansas. For more information, visit www.recycleark.org or call Cherie O’Mary, ARC Executive Director, at (866) 290-1429.

About McKee Foods

Founded in 1934 by O.D. and Ruth McKee, McKee Foods Corporation has grown to become America’s leading family-owned snack cake bakery. McKee Foods offers more than 90 varieties of Little Debbieand 32 varieties of Sunbelt Bakery snacks and cereals that are sold in all 50 states, Canada and Puerto Rico. The company is headquartered in Collegedale, Tenn., and has production facilities in Gentry and Stuarts Draft, Va. McKee Foods also owns the Collegedale-based subsidiaries Blue Planet Foods, manufacturer of high-quality granola products including Heartland cereals and pie shells, and Fieldstone Bakery, whichprovides institutional food service organizations withnutritious, high-quality snacks and cereals.

News, Pages 8 on 09/19/2012