Grand Rapids Focus
Founded in 1902 by Reverend Edgar J Helms, Goodwill was one of the first industries to practice sustainable efforts. Helms had a goal to make use of recycled materials for families in need. He once stated, “Goodwill saves the waste in men and things.” Not only did he find value in reused goods, he sought out a way to help employ community members as well.
The Goodwill's of Greater Grand Rapids are committed to following the same values set forth by the international industries. Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids was officially formed in 1966 to serve the same purpose as intended by founder Reverend Helms. Kent County and surrounding areas provide career opportunities at no cost to those in need. Goodwill is also known to help people obtain necessary workforce skills that can be used for life.
Before the phrase 'Triple Bottom Line’ became known, local Goodwill's were already adhering to the principles of sustainable development. Goodwill's sole purpose is to pass along items to the next person that would otherwise end up in the landfill. Any and all revenue made by Goodwill is regenerated back into their system to fund employment services and better our communities. Goodwill hires about 1200 employers per year and services roughly 5,000 people annually for long-term competitive employment. This totals to over 6000 community members learning to become self-sufficient and have job security.
Nick Carlson, Director of Environmental Sustainability quotes “Goodwill Industries of Grand Rapids move about 25-26 million pounds of merchandise through Kent County’s Goodwill stores every single year.” In 2019, 6.5 million pounds of textiles, 2.5 million pounds of paper products, 1.5 million pounds of metals and electronics, and 1.5 million pounds of other materials totaled 12 million pounds of items that went into salvage and recycling markets. The Environmental Protection Agency says the average person discards an estimated 81 pounds of clothing each year (EPA). Goodwill helps reduce that number by recycling clothing and reselling it to the public. Textile fabric depletes more than 70 million trees every year (Forbes/Zady). With polyester being one of the longest-lasting materials to break down, almost 70 million barrels of oil are needed to create polyester. In order to reduce the amount of polyester being thrown into landfills, Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids partnered with another local sustainable organization, Greener Grads to repurpose over a million graduation gowns. Their combined sustainable efforts have helped prevent less polyester left to waste in our landfills.
What I have mentioned is only a fraction of what Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids has done to promote sustainable practices. Overall their efforts to better the environment are admirable and will continue to flourish in the upcoming years. They do say “one man's trash is another man's treasure!
Information provided by: Sustainability - Goodwill of Greater Grand Rapids (goodwillgr.org)
Roots of Goodwill®’s Sustainability - Goodwill Industries International
About Goodwill - Goodwill of Greater Grand Rapids (goodwillgr.org)
Nick Carlson - Goodwill Industries of Grand Rapids - Bing video
The City of Wyoming Clean Water Plant has been using Lake Michigan as a water source since 1996. The City’s current water supply system has a service population of approximately 140,000 people. In an effort to maintain and preserve our freshwater resources, the City of Wyoming’s mission is simple: Community, safety, stewardship, with a vision focused on emphasizing a “diverse, strong, and authentic community where all individuals have the opportunity to thrive.” Access to clean and safe drinking water is crucial to the upkeep of public health, and this truth is reflected within the City of Wyoming’s Clean Water Plant’s principles and practices.
The plant’s environmental and sustainability principles summarized within their website place conservation and continuous improvement at the forefront of their practices. Since 1996, the City of Wyoming’s water treatment capacity has grown from 32 million gallons of water per day to 90 million gallons per day, which has demanded that the drinking water plant evolve their practice to respond to the growing community and their needs in terms of clean and safe water.
The first listed practice within the plant’s website is the Industrial Pretreatment Program. This program requires staff to regularly collect wastewater samples of industrial users within the community. This ensures that industries are following appropriate laws and are keeping toxins and pollutants out of the wastewater treatment system and that these industries are paying for the additional water treatment, rather than the rest of the community. A second practice of the Wyoming Clean Water Plant is Stormwater Regulation. This practice protects the city’s wastewater system by preventing pollution from storm runoff. The City obtained a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit in order to contribute to this effort. Requirements and guidelines held by the status of the permit hold the plant accountable for the continuation of this practice. The Cross Connection Control Program uses back spinners or physical separation in order to remove contaminants from the drinking water or undo cross-contamination between two water sources they may potentially pollute each other. The City of Wyoming has had an EGLE-approved Cross Connection Control Program since 1972. This program is responsible for identifying and eliminating cross-connections within the city. In order to accomplish this, city staff members educate the community through mail or public events, inspecting facilities, and participating in testing of the backflow preventer. Lastly, the City of Wyoming’s Clean Water Plant participates in providing Public and Educational Tours. As a key part of the City’s community outreach efforts, there are no better examples of applied sciences than within the clean water facilities.
The City of Wyoming’s Clean Water Plant is transparent and forward about its beliefs on the importance of maintaining a clean and accessible water source. One area of improvement that could be focused on by the city could be energy usage, and adopting practices that aid in energy conservation or even require less energy. Overall through the many programs that they actively participate in, the Clean Water Plant show patterns of growth throughout the years that prove their commitment to evolving as the City and its needs also evolve.
After reviewing the Meijer website, I found out that the company is actually doing quite a bit to become more sustainable. In the first part of my poster you can see the principles section, in this section I listed the environmental and sustainability principles that the company has in mind. These include, carbon reduction, waste reduction, sustainable change in infrastructure, and sustainable packaging.
Along with each of these principles is a practice that they do to help achieve the company's sustainability goals. The first principle that I mentioned above was carbon reduction, this goal goes along with the changing light sources, new truck diesel, and electric car charging stations practices. The company has a record for trying to be more energy efficient. During this year, they will have all their lightbulbs be changed to LED lights which will save a lot of energy and help reduce waste from energy plants. Another practice that has helped reduce carbon is changing their semi trucks to run on 100% clean diesel. And lastly for carbon reduction, many Meijer stores have electric car charging stations located in their parking lots which helps promote cleaner running cars as well.
The next principle is to reduce waste. The practices that go along with this goal are initiatives to promote recycling, plastic and film waste recycling bins, and joining the Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions Program. By promoting recycling to Meijer customers, the company will be able to divert waste from landfills to be recycled. Every year Meijer saves 100,000 tons of material from landfills. As part of the Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions Program Meijer pledges to reduce food waste by 50% per store by 2030. One thing that I have personally seen and participated in was recycling plastic bags at a Meijer location near me. This is a really good recycling program because traditional recycling companies do not take plastic bags like Meijer does.
The last two principles are sustainable infrastructure and sustainable packaging. With the sustainable infrastructure goal, all new Meijer stores are LEED certified. Which means that they have infrastructure that helps the store be more environmentally friendly than it may typically be. Lastly, sustainable packaging is important to Meijer and they have implemented goals and systems into place that will help them achieve 100% recyclable, reusable, or compostable packaging by 2025.
Overall, Meijer is doing a good job at trying to be more environmentally friendly and sustainable but there is always room for improvement!
John Ball Zoo is an organization near and dear to my heart. I’ve been a loving patron since I was six years old and decided to do my research on John Ball Zoo after witnessing their sustainability efforts. The Mission Statement of John Ball Zoo is as follows: “John Ball Zoo inspires our community to be actively engaged in the conservation of wildlife and our natural environment.”
As listed on the slide, John Ball Zoo holds many principles, all outlined within their website, as well as in online annual reports. Many of their principles fall under their mission statement in an effort to protect wildlife and the natural environment. I tried to provide examples of their practices based on the principles they hold.
To start with, John Ball Zoo prides itself on limiting the amount of waste that ends in landfills, as well as using and producing less energy. To accomplish these goals, John Ball Zoo tries to recycle and compost as many good as possible like paper, plastic, and more. They also have compostable dinnerware as a part of their Imagine Trash Program. To limit energy use, John Ball Zoo has invested in green roofing and vegetated walls with reduce rainwater runoff and reduce heat flux for lower heating and cooling costs.
Another principle of John Ball Zoo is to assist in the survival of endangered or threatened species and their environment. In order to do this, John Ball Zoo practices animal conservation in and out of the zoo by using and enforcing different Species Survival Plans. As an Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) accredited zoo, John Ball participates in managing the survival of many species such as the Red Panda or Amur Tiger. They also participate in monitoring the species of Michigan that are endangered like the Kirtland’s Warbler (bird) and the Massasauga Rattlesnake.
The final principle of John Ball Zoo is to support sustainable and conservative efforts made by global organizations. In order to accomplish this, John Ball Zoo participates in their Wildlife Conservation Fund to take in donations that help endangered/threatened species around the globe. They obtain donations through their many programs, as well as by educating the public on the species out there.
Overall, John Ball Zoo does a lot to not only practice conservation and sustainability, but they also assist other organizations in their efforts as well. I encourage all to check out their website for more information, or pop in for a visit this summer.
Sources: John Ball Zoo Annual Report from 2017 and What We Do | John Ball Zoo (jbzoo.org)
Emma Russell
Meijer is a regional store that is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Using sustainable practices is important to them to apply daily. Since sustainability is valued by them they have developed many strategies that can be used by the customers and by the entire store.
One of their practices to reduce their carbon footprint is to focus on their energy efficiency programs and decrease their energy use. Since 2005 Meijer has reduced their overall energy use by 30 percent. They did this by switching many of their lights to energy efficient LEDs, and improving their refrigeration systems. Also, by using energy that has been generated from renewable energy sources can reduce their environmental impact. They encourage their customers to decrease their carbon footprint as well by providing electric vehicle charging ports in over 20 percent of their stores' parking lots.
Another one of their sustainability practices is using waste reduction strategies and finding alternative ways of disposing of the food waste that they do create. Since 2018 Meijer has achieved a 95 percent diversion rate at their food manufacturing facilities. One of the ways they divert waste from landfills is by utilizing a recycling program. They have found ways to take their food waste and turn it into animal feed or to use composting and anaerobic digestion to turn the waste into natural gas and nutrient rich soil fertilizer. They also have a food rescue program where they donate the food that otherwise would have been thrown away, to local food banks and food drives. A way for the customers to help with their waste reduction was by providing places in the stores that the customers can recycle their old plastic bags instead of throwing them away to be sent to landfills
Meijer uses a green infrastructure plan to manage rainwater to minimize runoff and erosion in the parking lots. By replacing current methods of pavement for parking lots with a porous pavement mixture allows rainwater to filter through it and recharge the groundwater below. If the water is allowed to pass through the pavement this will result in less surface runoff and ground erosion. It also means it will cause less cracking and ice that accumulates during the winter. Another solution is implementing infiltration basins near the parking lots which allows for any runoff to enter this basin and be filtered instead of immediately reentering the lakes, rivers, and streams.
Providing fresh produce in stores is another important sustainability practice that Meijer uses. Meijer works with more than 125 local growers within the 6 states they are present in. By relying on local farms for a lot of their produce decreases their carbon emissions since the produce doesn’t need to travel as far. This local produce is also good for the customers since it won’t cost them as much to buy it if it hasn't been shipped nationally or globally. It also ensures better produce since they are usually grown during peak season and harvested when they are at their best quality and ripeness.
Meijer’s sustainability practices and programs have many strengths that can help the company and the customers' carbon footprints. Specifically their waste diversion programs are keeping a lot of their waste from entering landfills and finding other uses for it. Although, one of the weaknesses of their sustainable practices is that they may not be focusing enough on minimizing their waste at the source and just produce less waste overall. They have a lot of “clean-up” solutions like their recycling programs but they should just focus on ways they can reduce the waste before it happens. For example, they could do this by finding ways to reuse packaging and boxes used for shipping produce instead of just recycling.
Sources:
http://meijercommunity.com/local-products
https://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/deq-tou-MISCON_Presentation-MeijerSustainability_602557_7.pdf
