LAS VEGAS — Supervalu-owned Albertsons announced that 30 stores located in the greater Las Vegas area, Henderson, Nev., and Boulder City, Nev., have diverted more than 90% of all store waste from local landfills.
Through recycling, organic composting and food donations, the stores combined to keep more than 21 million pounds of waste out of local landfills and donate 3.5 million meals to local food bank and hunger relief efforts in the past year.
At the end of 2007, the 30 Albertsons stores were generating an average of 1,588 pounds of waste each day per store, but today each store is averaging just over 100 pounds of landfill waste per day, a 93.2% reduction. Albertsons has thereby eliminated 978 full garbage truck trips annually to the landfill, equivalent to a line of trucks stretching five miles long.
Albertsons will celebrate this accomplishment by sponsoring an Earth Day coloring contest called “How My Family Reduces, Reuses and Recycles” for Las Vegas students in grades K-6. The students are being invited to draw a picture illustrating “How my Family Reduces, Reuses and Recycles at Home” by April 18. Ten winners will be selected and each will receive $150 in Albertsons gift cards.
“Albertsons’ ultimate goal is to eliminate waste from store operations and I couldn’t be more proud of the leadership our Las Vegas Albertsons stores have show in this area,” said Sue Klug, president of Albertsons Las Vegas and Southern California division, in a statement.