Agropur partners with Cascades to reduce waste

Agropur Cooperative introduced an innovative program to recover inorganic waste at its 28 Canadian plants, in partnership with Cascades.

The large-scale circular-economy project is a first in the Canadian dairy industry. 

Agropur and Cascades have signed a 5-year agreement to pool their expertise in order to implement an environmentally friendly industrial waste management solution. This green project will harness a circular-economy model to considerably reduce waste and recover inorganic materials generated by Agropur’s dairy processing plants. 

“Agropur is pleased to partner with Cascades in a major circular-economy initiative that will introduce an innovative industrial waste recovery system,” says Robert Coallier, CEO of Agropur in a press release. “This environmentally responsible program will be rolled out across all our Canadian plants over the next five years. We anticipate a 50-60 per cent reduction in the amount of waste we send to landfill every year.”

Agropur’s circular-economy program will give a substantial quantity of inorganic waste a second life. Agropur will be in the middle of a value-added loop: it will sell its industrial wastes to Cascades, which will transform them into recycled products, including cardboard boxes, which Agropur will buy back, and so on. 

The project is part of Agropur’s corporate social responsibility effort, which aims to reduce our environmental footprint one step at a time and honour their “Better Dairy. Better World” promise.