2022 Sustainability Leadership Awards

Casella is pleased to announce that seven of its customers were recently honored for their leadership in sustainability at the second annual Casella Sustainability Leadership Awards Ceremony.

During the ceremony, Casella recognized Cabot/Agri-Mark, GlobalFoundries, Middlebury Natural Foods Co-Op, Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, St. Paul’s School, the town of Stratham, N.H., and Tufts University as customers who are standing out among their peers in their efforts to reach their sustainability goals.

The Casella Sustainability Leadership Awards represent a commitment to creating a better tomorrow and showcase the grit, drive, and determination that has led each award recipient down their own individual sustainability paths. These impressive leaders were selected out of dozens of qualifying nominations including municipalities, colleges and universities, community organizations, industrial manufacturers, food and beverage producers, and more.

“It gives us a great sense of pride to honor these seven customers for their innovative work in prioritizing sustainable practices today, tomorrow, and well into the future,” said John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO of Casella Waste Systems, Inc. “Their work inspires us every day and we hope that by shining the spotlight on them that others will be driven to improve the sustainability of their operations.”

Recognized customers were celebrated on Wednesday, April 20 during a virtual ceremony, which featured stories of resource sustainability excellence in the areas of partnership, innovation, recycling, organics recovery, donations and reuse, closed-loop economy, and education.

“Sustainability has been at our core for the past 47 years and continues to guide our work for future generations. I would like to thank all the customers we have the privilege of servicing for joining us in our ongoing, ever-evolving sustainability journey and for choosing Casella as a collaborative partner. We look forward to continuing to advance these efforts within our industry and inspiring others to do the same,” Casella said.

2022 Casella Sustainability Leadership Award Winners

Cabot/Agri-Mark is the Northeast’s premier dairy farmers cooperative with operating locations in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York. As stewards of the land, Cabot/Agri-Mark has a longstanding focus on material sustainability which includes practices such as comprehensive industrial recycling, de-packaging for recovery, and organic food product reclamation.

GlobalFoundries, one of the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers, collaborated with Casella’s resource solutions to achieve an impressive 84 percent recycling rate at its Essex, Vermont facility in 2021, up from 25 percent in 2018. Operating worldwide, the company has a dedicated recovery space staffed by Casella employees who bale, sort, and ship materials, and recently added a HDPE drum baler that has improved both hauling logistics and costs for the company.

Middlebury Natural Food Co-Op in Middlebury, Vermont is the perfect example of a smaller customer, making an important impact. The co-op has successfully deployed Casella recycling, organics, and solutions services to achieve an impressive 74 percent recycling rate and continues to prioritize sustainable practices throughout their day-to-day operations in the forms of food composting, cardboard collection, and promotion of reusable packaging.

Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation operates one of the largest and most successful leaf and yard trimmings compost facilities in the northeast. With a mission of providing safe, environmentally compliant, clean, and affordable solid waste and recycling services to the Rhode Island community, Casella has collaborated with RIRRC to produce and market a top-quality, Class A product that is safe for all uses including certified organic growing. Each year, the site generates 60,000 yards of finely screened, organic-approved compost.

St. Paul’s School, a private boarding school located in Concord, New Hampshire, has collaborated with Casella to help advance its recycling and sustainability goals, while recovering nearly 68 tons of recyclables and organic materials each year. One of St. Paul’s most innovative initiatives has been the deployment of Grind2Energy technology to recover the campus’ food waste for anaerobic digestion. The project installation and implementation marked St. Paul’s School the first organization in New Hampshire, and the first high school anywhere, to adopt the technology.

The Town of Stratham, New Hampshire, has been a valued Casella customer for the past nine years and is serviced by the Casella hauling division in Salem. With a population of around 7,500, the town currently recycles nearly 1,000 tons per year with an estimated recycling rate of 30 percent. To further advance their recycling efforts, in 2021 Stratham residents transitioned to automated collection services, improving overall efficiency, safety, and environmental impact. To support the project, the Town secured a grant from the Recycling Partnership for education and carts, which are constructed from 40 percent post-consumer recycled content

Tufts University has made sustainability one of its campus-wide strategic priorities over the past few years, establishing itself as an innovative leader for higher education institutions. During this time, Casella has supported many of the campus’s resource management programs, including specialty recycling for film, foam, and textiles, move-out donation days, and the Tufts Eco-Rep Program in which over a dozen students support sustainability in the residence halls. During the 2019-20 academic year, the eco-reps collected 2,683 gallons of food waste for composting, in addition to the University’s impressively low contamination rate of seven percent.