FedEx earns $10 for every $1 spent on recyclables

September 11, 2012
By Mark Fisk | WRN reporter

Federal Express Corp. didn't deliver its recycling program overnight, but the company certainly shows how profits can arise from an idea.

FedEx gets a return of $10 for every dollar invested in its recycling program, and since its inception in June 2006, the company has recycled 93 million pounds of material, said Joseph Stearns Jr., the company's senior environmental compliance specialist.

Not too shabby for an effort that began with some fairly simple questions.

"Around 2004, we started getting inquiries from our West Coast facilities on what were the current recycling initiatives for the company, and back then we didn't have any," said Stearns, who will be one of the speakers today during the "ABCs of Recycling" panel at the Corporate Recycling & Waste Conference. "We knew sustainability was becoming a buzzword and we decided as a company to go in this direction. I met with upper management to get the program approval."

Even with the approval, Stearns faced some challenges.

"I got the approval, but I didn't get the capital," Stearns said. "So I didn't have the solution to really get started [buying things] like balers and other equipment."

That initial capital came from a couple of vendors who supplied the money for Stearns to purchase two balers in what he called a "lease-to-buy" deal for FedEx.

Although getting equipment proved to be an initial snag, one part of the recycling program was nearly already in place. Since routing and delivery come second-nature for the shipping service giant, the infrastructure for hauling material came easily.

"One of the things that we did have going for us is we have one of the best back-hauling networks in the nation," Stearns said. "So getting the material to a central location was quite easy."

Last year, FedEx recycled 47.9 million pounds of the material generated at its facilities, according to the company's 2011 Global Citizenship Report. In 2010, the parcel delivery company recycled 41.5 million pounds. Since 2007, the company's Ground Green program has recycled 65.1 million pounds of paper, cardboard, metal and plastic.

Stearns said FedEx continues to study ways to become more sustainable. One example involves repacking customers' packages when they open. The company used to repack packages using material such as peanuts and "pillows" filled with air.

"What we're doing is we're reusing cardboard shred as a repack material, and I have 40 of these machines throughout the whole network," Stearns said.

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