2021 CASE STUDIES: Public Benefit of Casella Partnerships in New Hampshire

Casella doesn’t manage resources in a vacuum. Instead, the company partners with numerous entities — both private and public — to support New Hampshire’s waste hierarchy model, promoting waste reduction, reuse and recycling. The following six examples highlight the scope of services the company provides to help customers meet recycling and sustainability goals. Altogether, Casella helped New Hampshire customers recycle more than 5,000 tons in 2021.

HYPERTHERM, LEBANON

As businesses approach zero-waste standards, they often reach a point where they’re capturing all standard recyclables and need to invest in specialized recycling services. In 2018, Hypertherm, an industrial manufacturer, approached Casella to achieve their zero-waste goals. Recognizing that consolidation would be required, the partners secured warehouse space on the Hypertherm campus, and Casella hired staff to sort, segregate and process materials.

By consolidating materials, the program had an immediate impact on Hypertherm’s sustainability goals. This set the stage for an Aggregation and Recovery Collaboration, known as the Casella ARC model. To fully leverage Hypertherm’s warehouse, Casella began sourcing recyclables from other customers with hard-to-recycle material.

Today, Hypertherm’s recycling rate exceeds 98%, and the ARC model enables nearly 1,000 tons per year of recycling for customers throughout the region. Casella has since utilized this model as a successful service standard and replicated the approach in other Northeast markets.

TOWN OF BETHLEHEM

Casella provides Bethlehem (population 2,500) with several critical services to advance waste reduction and recycling. These services include a free curbside, single-stream recycling service, as well as drop-off locations for electronics, metals and tires, and an annual household hazardous waste collection day, which collectively allowed residents to capture 378 tons of recycled material in 2021.

In recent years, Bethlehem’s recycling rate has ranged from 27% to 34%. With the addition of new services, Casella officials expect those numbers to continue to rise. The company recently partnered with a regional veteran-owned business, Apparel Impact, to add textile recovery to the town’s services. The program provides a drop-off bin for residents to donate used clothing. Bethlehem also hosts the North Country Environmental Services landfill and Casella’s new recycled natural gas facility.

PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY, EXETER

Phillips Exeter has been a collaborator with Casella for six years, advancing the campus’s recycling needs and sustainability initiatives. Casella services helps the school capture single-stream recycling, compost, wood, metal, e-waste and donations, recovering nearly 250 tons per year from the disposal stream. In the 2021 academic year, Phillips Exeter achieved a 49% recycling rate.

To minimize contamination (non-recyclable items) in the recycling stream, Casella supports the campus’s grounds crew through its Recycle Better program, providing training, consistent signage and ongoing communication. Efforts have included education to keep out plastic bags, which serve as a problematic contaminant at most academic campuses. “Green Move Out” days, held in conjunction with Goodwill, collect goods for donation and reuse.

In 2021, Casella installed compactor-monitoring technology that enables the service team to optimize load sizes, cutting costs, fuel consumption and emissions. The compactor monitor is analyzed remotely, and preliminary results show it has cut fuel emissions by 49%, saving over 400 gallons of fuel over six months.

COCA-COLA, LONDONDERRY

In 2016, Casella and Coca-Cola Northeast began a collaborative journey rooted in sustainability to get Coca-Cola’s Londonderry bottling plant to zero waste. Together, the two organizations improved the facility’s material management program to attain a recycling rate of over 90%. Since the initial partnership launch, Casella has expanded its services to manage all of the Coca-Cola facilities throughout the Northeast, including two New Hampshire locations in Belmont and Londonderry, recovering hundreds of tons of material from these plants each year.

Casella and Coca-Cola have worked on recovering recyclable commodities collected throughout the plant, as well as managing non-salable, fully packaged goods to better use. Casella’s depackaging capabilities for the non-salable products separate the liquid material (sodas, juices, etc.) from the packaging (PET bottles, aluminum cans, etc.) with both streams being recovered and diverted from disposal. In 2021, these efforts have led to the recovery of over 570 tons of recycling.

TOWN OF STRATHAM

With a population of roughly 7,500, Stratham is serviced by Casella’s hauling division in Salem. The town currently recycles nearly 1,000 tons per year, with an estimated recycling rate of 30%. To increase the community’s recycling efforts in 2021, residents transitioned to automated collection services. Automation improves efficiency and safety, and the shift to wheeled carts improves recycling by increasing participation, reducing litter and keeping recyclables dry.

To support the project, Stratham secured a grant from the Recycling Partnership for carts and education. The carts contain 40% post-consumer recycled content, which is among the highest in the industry. The project communication strategy also included a multi-year Recycle Better education campaign to improve recycling quality by ensuring residents understood curbside collection programs and only recyclable items are placed in bins.

TOWN OF SEABROOK

Seabrook, in partnership with Casella, has created significant environmental value by composting wastewater bio-solids at the Hawk Ridge Compost Facility in Unity, Maine. Wastewater bio-solids are often overlooked in the municipal solid-waste stream, but the total number of tons can be significant, as are the environmental benefits of transforming them into high-quality compost.

The Hawk Ridge Compost Facility uses fully enclosed composting that provides 100% process control, enabling Casella to produce consistent compost. After the active tunnel compost phase, the compost is aged for three months, then screened and purchased by local soil professionals, landscapers, golf courses and nurseries to improve soil organic matter, water retention and nutrient levels. Composting a total of 1,800 tons per year of bio-solids, Hawk Ridge has an estimated annual greenhouse gas benefit of over 860 metric tons of CO2e, the equivalent to taking more than 180 cars off the road. Seabrook’s decision to recycle bio-solids helps recover valuable organic nutrients, rebuild and replenish soils and protect the climate. n

ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL WINS CASELLA’S SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP AWARD

Located in Concord, St. Paul’s School has been a Casella customer for more than five years. Through this collaboration, Casella has helped the institution advance its sustainability goals, while recovering nearly 100 tons of recyclables and organic materials in 2021.

St. Paul’s School is the recipient of Casella’s 2021 Sustainability Leadership Award, honoring the school for its commitment to resource sustainability, as well as its ongoing dedication to creating a brighter future.

“It gives us a sense of great pride to honor our customers for their outstanding work in advancing sustainability,” said John W. Casella, Casella’s chairman and CEO. “We hope that by bringing attention to their efforts, others will be inspired by their passion, commitment and success.”

One of St. Paul’s most innovative initiatives is the implementation of Grind2Energy technology to recover campus food waste for anaerobic digestion. The equipment, installed in March 2020, was a first in New Hampshire, making St. Paul’s the first high school anywhere to adopt the technology. The cutting-edge G2E technology has proved to be an ideal fit for the institution’s operations, campus aesthetics and sustainability mission, helping to find a purpose for large volumes of on-site food waste.

Each month Casella provides St. Paul’s School with a diversion report that summarizes electricity generated and emissions saved due to the G2E system. The data is then shared with students and staff. Since 2020, St. Paul’s School has captured over 100 tons of food waste, generated 9,930 kilowatt-hours of power, reduced carbon emissions and extracted 3.1 tons of fertilizer. n