Collins Bus Corporation was awarded the Green Corporate Citizen Award last month for its company-wide recycling efforts. The school bus OEM received the award from Waste & Recycling News at the inaugural Corporate Recycling & Waste Conference in Orlando, Fla.
Collins was one of three finalists in the competition, along with General Motors Corporation and Turner Construction Inc. The company was recognized for greatly reducing its waste stream in just two years. Collins started a company-wide recycling initiative in 2009, lowered its waste to landfill amount to 293 tons in 2010 and, this year, kicked off a new single-stream recycling program.
Before beginning its recycling initiative, Collins was sending virtually all of its waste — except scrap metal — to the local landfill. When the company began to analyze all types of waste, it discovered that a significant portion of the nearly 1,000 tons sent annually to the dump could be recycled. Some of the waste included pallets, cardboard, waste wood and other recyclables. All told, the company has reduced its solid waste to the landfill by more than 90 percent in just two years.
Mike Strickland, Collins’ environmental, health and safety manager, who started the recycling programs, accepted the award on behalf of the company at the conference. “Mike has been out front, leading in all of our environmental and waste reduction efforts,” said Kent Tyler, president of Collins. “These initiatives have proven good for the company and good for the environment.”
