Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP)

1999 WRAP of the Year

The 1999 WRAP of the Year winners are:

Other Wrap of the Year Winners: 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996

Autry Museum of Western Heritage--Los Angeles

Autry Museum of Western Heritage is the largest museum in the nation devoted exclusively to the history of the American West. The museum's extensive recycling program covers such unique items as trees and use of recycled water for irrigation and landscaping. The museum staff and volunteers recycle all items that could possibly be recycled. New this year, the Autry requires all leftover food from various functions be donated to the Los Angeles Food Bank or the L.A. Mission. The Autry Museum waste reduction program has enabled it to reduce trash pickup from five times a week to just one, which is a large savings for the museum. Money raised from recycling its cans, bottles, etc. is used to fund the museum's employee recreation program.

Cagwin & Dorward Landscape Contractors--Novato

Cagwin & Dorward Landscape Contrators, winner of water management and environmental awards, provide services throughout Northern California. Recycling is essential to their operation as they generate and recycle over 23,000 cubic yards of green waste, 850 gallons of used motor oil, and 1,200 pounds of paper annually. Cagwin & Dorward provide their customers with water conservation and management programs, including converting irrigation to use reclaimed water where available. Additionally, the company is focused on using and developing electronic media such as Web site work order forms and electronic mail to correspond with customers. These efforts save the company over $25,000 annually and saves their customers several thousand dollars in water expense.

Investec--Santa Barara

Investec is the Central Coast's premier homebuilder, has incorporated numerous sustainable building techniques in its development projects. With current residential projects representing over 400 homes in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, the incorporation of environmental measures in design and construction of Investec's homes is of obvious importance to these communities. At Summerland Heights, Investec's recycling efforts have included quantifying the amount of wood, metal, drywall, cardboard, paper, asphalt and concrete that have been diverted from the waste stream and recycled. The successful practices and policies responsible for a 90 percent diversion rate for construction materials have provided model guidelines for the Community Environmental Council's C&D Source Reduction and Recycling Project sponsored by the U.S. EPA Solid Waste Assistance Fund.

Kraft Foods, Inc. Visalia

Kraft Foods, Inc. Visalia plant has 230 team members dedicated to the company's environmental policies and waste reduction. All food waste from the company's feed mill (Superior Ag) is recycled. Waste product from sour cream and cottage cheese production is dried and combined with a corn byproduct and sold as animal feed in the Central Valley. This streamlined process turns process waste into a business profit. In addition, thousands of pounds of food products are donated to Foodlink of Tulare County. Largely due to Kraft's waste reduction activities and donations to Foodlink, they recently won "The Large Business of the Year" award in Visalia. Kraft is considered the largest cottage cheese producer in the world and has also earned Visalia's "Best Overall" award in the categories of air, land, and water for the past two years.

Memorial Hospitals Association (MHA) - Modesto

Memorial Hospitals Association (MHA) is an affiliate of Sutter Health/California Healthcare System, a nonprofit healthcare corporation. For years, MHA has donated expired products to needy areas such as Russia's Children's Clinics in Chernobyl and missions in Mexico. Memorial Medical Center (MMC), a facility owned and managed by MHA, has a "green team," which successfully implemented a hospital-wide waste reduction education program, incorporated new office paper containers throughout the organization, and achieved approval by the Administration for Hospital Waste Reduction Policy & Procedures. MMC employees recycled 10,072.5 pounds of white office paper and 21.23 tons of cardboard in just seven months!

Pebble Beach Company--Pebble Beach

Pebble Beach Company is a distinctive resort complex dedicated to the environment, recycling, and waste reduction. Pebble Beach Company owns and operates two hotels and four golf courses in the Del Monte Forest and one course in Monterey. Over 3,500 acres of golf courses, landscaped areas, forests, seashore, and open space lands are managed on a multiple use basis. Recognizing that resource efficiency and waste reduction are the essential components of wise-use environmental management, the company has developed a number of programs to reduce, reuse, and recycle waste. During 1998, 326 tons of glass, cardboard, and paper were recycled. However, green waste recycling has been Pebble Beach Company's most successful program. Last year, over 2,500 tons of compost was produced from golf course grass clippings and forest green waste. The composting process provides an additional benefit by killing pitch canker spores, thus preventing the spread of a very serious forest disease. All of the high quality compost produced is used entirely on Pebble Beach properties.

Straus Family Creamery--Petaluma

Straus Family Creamery produces high quality dairy products. Straus packages their milk in reusable glass bottles, thus mainstreaming an "old" concept in the modern marketplace. By placing a one-dollar deposit on all bottles, Straus encourages their customers to return bottles for reuse. Straus estimates that their glass bottle program has prevented millions of nonreusable plastic and cardboard milk containers from being landfilled. Straus Family Creamery has been nationally recognized as an environmental-agricultural pioneer combining ecosensitive manufacturing and farming practices.

Swinerton & Walberg Company - San Francisco

Swinerton & Walberg Company is an employee-owned general contractor headquartered in San Francisco with offices throughout the west. It provides construction, construction management, and design/build services for offices, hotels, academia, and retail. All offices are proud to be part of the effort to reduce the impact the construction industry has on the environment and to be good citizens in the communities they serve. Swinerton & Walberg are especially proud to be implementing an aggressive recycling program throughout its whole corporation. The organization views its role in waste reduction as invaluable as no price can be placed on the conservation of natural resources.

Trips for Kids/Re-Cyclery--San Rafael

Trips for Kids/Re-Cyclery is devoted to recycling used bikes and bike parts. Their goal is to keep bikes out of landfills and to return them to the streets as efficient, environmentally friendly modes of transportation. Their used bikes are affordable and useful for both adults and children. They recycle about 25 bikes per week, repairing and reselling approximately ten of those while donating the remainder to other bike repair programs or taking them to a scrap metal recycler. All proceeds from the sale of bikes in their thrift shop supports the nonprofit programs taking inner-city kids on mountain bike outings and helping low-income kids learn job skills while earning bikes of their own.

Unisys Corporation--San Diego

Unisys Corporation in Rancho Bernardo manufactures information management systems, including the mainframe computer and the high-end server, for mission critical applications. Unisys Corporation has modified its packaging process to use biodegradable starch packaging to replace an isocyanate packaging foam system. The packaging materials generated from incoming packaging are donated to local companies like Mail Boxes Etc. for reuse. Unisys Corporation recycles a multitude of materials ranging from paper to landscape greenery resulting in a diversion of 80 percent or nearly 1,500 tons per year of its waste from landfill. This generates over $114,000 in revenue and saves approximately 25,000 trees.

Last updated: March 06, 2008