Waste Management

Large blocks of aluminum in triangle-like pieces

As we continue to work towards Zero Waste to Landfill, Crown’s guidance in all our global sites follows the hierarchy below.

Waste Hierarchy Steps:

  • Prevent –  Top priority must be placed on reducing or preventing waste. Can waste be avoided by not using the material in the first place?
  • Reduce – Can less materials be used in the manufacturing stage?
  • Reuse – Can materials be re-used in other areas of your production process, or by someone else?
  • Recycle – Can the materials be recycled, either in whole or in part to turn the waste into a new product.
  • Recover – Where further recycling is not practical or possible, energy or materials could be recovered from waste through processes such as anaerobic digestion or incineration.
  • Dispose – When all else fails, materials that cannot be reused, recycled or recovered for energy will be landfilled and incinerated (without energy recovery). This is an unsustainable method of waste management because waste that sits in landfills can continue to have a damaging environmental impact.

Types of Waste

In our metal packaging facilities, steel and aluminum, which are infinitely recyclable and circular in nature, represent the vast majority of our incoming materials. The use of these substrates and other materials, such as recyclable paper and plastic, helps mitigate the waste-related impacts of our organization, including waste that is generated in our own activities and downstream.

Significant effort is made across our global facilities to capture, recover and recycle nearly 100% of our metal waste. To process the remainder of our waste, which includes items such as pallets, shrink wrap and cores from our metal coils, we take every step possible to divert it from landfills by reusing, recycling or generating energy from these materials. We also take conscious steps to recycle the plastic wrapping we produce, including operating recycling centers in our Transit Packaging facilities that purchase used material from customers and from curbside sources and process those materials to manufacture new products. Across the Company, we have also executed several blackbelt projects that aim to reduce waste in production processes and chemical consumption.

Our Approach

Every Crown facility carefully tracks and reports the amount of operational waste it generates and how it is managed. This database is constantly reviewed and assessed for accuracy. Since requirements for disposal vary from country to country, waste reporting is done at the local business level, and documentation is supplied by the waste contractor or the facility itself. Due to these global differences, we continue to work with our waste management suppliers to improve the collection of data against waste categories in a reliable and consistent way, aiming for alignment with and progression toward our overall Twentyby30 sustainability goals.

Our Ambition

Circular Economy principles are central to our vision of driving an efficient business that minimizes waste and resource use and maximizes material reuse. We are accelerating our contribution to the Circular Economy through the Optimum Circularity pillar of our Twentyby30 program, which includes a goal to send zero waste to landfill from our operations by 2030. Our zero waste efforts are based on several key actions:

  • Improving our understanding of waste generation analytics from our global operations
  • Enhancing our waste reduction culture
  • Collaborating with suppliers and other partners to increase waste reuse
  • Validating and verifying disposal practices