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Sustainability

Waste reduction

Reducing waste supports our operations and our communities

We focus our waste reduction efforts on diverting waste from the landfill in order to reduce our environmental footprint, conserve valuable operational resources and help the communities that we serve.

Our commitment to reducing waste sent to landfill

In 2018 we set a target for 100 per cent of our manufacturing sites to be zero-waste-to-landfill (ZWTL) certified by 2030. We also committed to reducing our waste volumes by 3 per cent annually, indexed to sales. 

We achieve our ZWTL initiatives through reuse, recycling, composting and incineration for energy generation. We use third-party verification to ensure the quality of our programme. Our approach priorities beneficial diversion, and the process starts with source reduction—eliminating waste streams before they reach our facilities. We then engage partners to help us divert our remaining waste from landfill.

All Eaton sites must manage waste responsibly in accordance with regulations and our internal EHS Management (MESH) standards, including identifying all waste streams and creating waste minimisation plans.

Number of Eaton sites to date that are zero waste-to-landfill
148
Number of Eaton sites to date that are zero waste-to-landfill
Number of metric tons by which we reduced our waste to landfill in 2017
904
Number of metric tons by which we reduced our waste to landfill in 2017
The percentage of our waste in 2018 diverted away from landfills through reuse, recycling, composting or waste-to-energy
87
%
The percentage of our waste in 2018 diverted away from landfills through reuse, recycling, composting or waste-to-energy

Innovative waste management at Cerkezkoy

Our Cerkezkoy site in Turkey, the largest hose manufacturing plant of its kind, earned its zero waste-to-landfill certification by consistently diverting waste through reuse, recycling and other means. For example, the plant converted their rubber-hose edge-waste to usable energy via an energy recovery incineration process and is converting cafeteria waste to renewable energy through bio-digestion and methane recovery. In only four years, the plant reduced its total landfill waste from 21 per cent to 0.

How we measure success

Indexed to sales, our waste to landfill, which includes waste incinerated without heat recovery, decreased by 8.8 per cent in 2018 compared to 2017. On an absolute basis, we decreased our waste generation by 3.4 per cent (from 26,402 tonnes in 2017 to 25,498 in 2018), a total decrease of 904 tonnes. 

Waste to landfill

Since 2015, we have reduced the waste sent to landfill by our operations by 24 per cent. For more, download our most recent Sustainability Report.

Learn more

JUST Capital recognised us as a leader in waste reduction and environmental stewardship, by including us among five companies that "stand above the rest for their environmental stewardship."

Learn more
Eaton’s mission is to improve the quality of life and the environment through the use of power management technologies and services. We provide sustainable solutions that help our customers effectively manage electrical, hydraulic and mechanical power – more safely, more efficiently and more reliably. Eaton’s 2019 revenues were $21.4 billion, and we sell products to customers in more than 175 countries. We have approximately 97,000 employees.
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