In Good Company: Waste Management, Inc.

February 2008

Waste Management has launched thinkgreen.com, an interactive web site that offers the public a look inside its landfills, recycling operations and environmentally friendly waste handling technology.

Waste Management, based in Houston, Texas, is the leading provider of comprehensive waste management services in North America. The site supports the company's ongoing efforts to educate the public about what happens to its waste.

The average citizen generates four-and-a-half pounds of waste each day. This project is designed to tell the story of what happens to this waste from the curbside onward, highlighting how advanced technologies are recovering resources and protecting the environment.

"We want to pull back the curtain and reverse the way the public thinks about waste. This is a tremendous opportunity for the public to learn more about our operations and the ways modern practices are protecting and enhancing the environment," said David Steiner, CEO. "Our goal is to not only be a waste collection and disposal company, but an industry leader that invests resources in the development of environmentally smart ways to manage waste. Where others see waste, we see opportunity."

Thinkgreen.com enables users to explore the ways Waste Management generates renewable energy, boosts recycling, and protects the environment. Visitors can learn about the process of collecting landfill gas to generate renewable energy, walk through a waste-to-energy facility, and learn more about recovering more recyclable resources than ever before through modern single-stream recycling. The web site also shows visitors how landfills safely manage waste and can benefit communities by serving as wildlife habitats and recreational spaces.

Thinkgreen.com is a continuation of the Think Green® campaign begun as a television and print advertising campaign in 2005. Another component of the campaign is being introduced at INNOVENTIONS at Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort. There, guests will have the opportunity to virtually experience the operations on a single-stream recycling line, feed the boiler at a waste-to-energy facility and run the bulldozer at a landfill in a hands-on, interactive exhibit called "Don't Waste It." In a fun and entertaining way, families will have the ability to calculate the amount of garbage they produce in a year and then have the responsibility to dispose of it safely and in ways that enhance the environment.

View more February 2008 articles >