PPB May 2020

resources to its environmental management program. Orbus has two full-time teammembers, one in Nevada and another in Illinois, who are dedicated to the recycling efforts, and several others who manage two full dock bays that are dedicated exclusively to sorting and distributing recyclable materials. “We have several team members in place whose full-time role is dedicated to achieving efficiency and gains, whether it be in our environmental management practices, our ISO standards, which we adhere to, or just generally making improvements to what we are able to recycle in our operations,” Whited says. Whited adds that an environmental management program is critical to successfully diverting Orbus’s recyclables from landfills. “No program is ever perfect,” she says. “It’s never outlined to recycle 100 percent, but it’s a matter of chipping away at that in every way possible.” Not only is Orbus reducing waste in landfills, but the company is also reducing its carbon footprint. Partnering with environmentally-conscious vendors like UPS, which plants trees across the U.S. as part of its carbon-neutral shipping program, helps Orbus achieve this. “We have to ship our goods,” Whited says. “But, if we know that the shipping partner we work with also plants trees across national forests in the U.S. to mitigate their contribution to the environment, that’s definitely something we are in support of and finding vendors like that is a continuous effort.” In the future, Whited says eco- friendly efforts at Orbus will go beyond mass-recycling. “We ask ourselves, ‘What else can we do?’ Some things we are looking into are, for the two buildings that we operate in, putting on a green roof and even installing electric car chargers in the parking lot.” Following Orbus’s diversion of 87 percent of its waste from landfills in 2019, Whited says the goal for 2020 is to exceed the bar set in 2018, when the supplier diverted 90 percent of its waste. “It’s not amatter of competing [with another company],” says Whited. “It’s amatter of taking those core values as very critical and important for our business and our leadership. We want to see other companies emulate what we are doing, so we, as a collective, can all divert wastematerials from landfills. Hopefully, we’ll set the stage for other companies to follow suit and eventually, work with one another.” Kristina Valdez is associate editor of PPB. Orbus's 2019 Recycled Materials 100,000 120,000 230,000 445,000 756,000 0 400,000 200,000 500,000 300,000 600,000 700,000 POUNDS OF MATERIALS Aluminum Plastic Fabric Cardboard, Cores and Paper In 2019, Orbus diverted 87 percent of its waste from landfills and is targeting 90 percent this year. | MAY 2020 | 61 THINK