Knauf Insulation Celebrates Recycling & Sustainability Achievements This Earth Day

04/21/2022

Shelbyville, IN — Knauf Insulation, Inc. has expanded upon its sustainability commitments over the past 12 months by supporting recycling initiatives and incorporating circular economy principles across its six U.S. manufacturing facilities.

As a company that uses 500 million pounds of recycled glass in its manufacturing process per year, Knauf is deeply invested in improving glass recycling rates through efforts such as:

• An employee recycling program launched on Earth Day 2021 has collected 42,000 pounds of glass which will go back into its manufacturing process.
• Support of “Just Glass,” a glass recycling pick-up service run by Justice Industries, a nonprofit in Nashville, TN, that creates job opportunities for individuals with barriers to traditional employment (homelessness, addiction, domestic violence).
• Partnerships with education and advocacy groups Glass Recycling Foundation, Circular Indiana, and others to be announced later this year. Knauf sponsored and hosted an event with Circular Indiana in the fall of 2021 that convened Indiana state legislators, manufacturers, economic development organizations, and other stakeholders to discuss supply chain issues involving recycled materials.
• A new program with the Shelby County Recycling District in which all glass collected at the Shelby County Transfer Station is used in the manufacturing process at Knauf Insulation.
• Introduction of the “Knauf Krusher” – a fun, hands on way to turn bottles into glass cullet and educate the community on the importance of glass recycling.
• An expansion of its Albion, Michigan plant will utilize an additional 64 million pounds of recycled glass per year, recovered in part through the state of Michigan’s Bottle Deposit Law.

Raising the awareness about glass recycling is very important to Knauf Insulation. Not only do we divert 50 tons of recyclable glass from the landfill every hour but the use of recycled glass has additional environmental benefits, lowering the amount of energy necessary for manufacturing and reducing the amount of raw minerals that need to be mined.

“As we look to the future it will be necessary for every organization and individual to assess the environmental impact that they have and take action to reduce the overall impact,” said Chris Mahin, Vice President of HSE and Sustainability at Knauf Insulation. “Knauf Insulation believes that sustainability is an ongoing process that must be improved. We are committed to continually pursuing alternatives for energy, raw materials, and packaging.”

Globally, Knauf Insulation has committed to the following objectives by 2025:

• Reduce embodied carbon of its products by 15 percent compared to 2019
• Reduce its carbon footprint by at least 25 percent
• Collect 25 percent of waste generated by customers on job sites and recycle it back into its manufacturing process
• Reduce our virgin plastic film packaging by more than 25 percent.