Difference makers St. Louis site employee environmental team started small—but results have been huge By Patrick Summers and photos by Ron Bookout Cheryl Fievet recalls the early days of recycling at the St. Louis site and sometimes has a hard time believing how far the recycling program has come in the past 10 years. “We started in 2003 with a handful of employees pushing to recycle the plastic soda-pop bottles from vending machines. We thought it was a big step forward just being allowed to move recycling containers indoors from outside in the parking lots,” said Fievet, an industrial engineer with Boeing Defense, Space & Security. Through persistence, partnerships with the site’s facilities group and support from leadership, the “handful” of employees a decade later is now the Boeing Employees for Environmental Protection, or BEEP, with 250 members. It’s one of the largest teams of environmentally active employees at Boeing. The St. Louis team is credited with helping establish innovative recycling projects that have helped Boeing reduce its environmental footprint and expand opportunities for employees to recycle and get involved with a variety of environmental activities. Bryan Kury, St. Louis Site Services manager, said employee engagement played an important role in helping the site support the company’s first five-year environmental targets, set in 2007. “It’s all about harnessing the power of the engaged and informed employee,” Kury said. The success of the employees’ efforts can be measured in part by the amount of solid waste the site now recycles—up from 12 percent in 2007 to 67 percent in 2012. The volume of waste sent to landfills has been reduced by two-thirds. Across the company, almost 80 percent of the solid waste Boeing generated from 2007 to 2012 was diverted from landfills. The initial push in St. Louis to recycle beverage containers expanded to include other materials such as cardboard, paper, wood, empty paint and sealant containers, Styrofoam, and several types of plastic. About 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms) of bubble wrap is recycled each month alone. The strong interest in recycling enables the team to organize on-site events so employees can bring from home used electronics and household items that are donated to community groups for reuse or recycling. Athletic shoes are donated to Nike for recycling into a surface material used on playgrounds and athletic fields; blankets and 32 Frontiers February 2014
Frontiers February 2014 Issue
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