Sustainability - "A Commitment to the Future"

Sacramento Container is committed to establishing and achieving sustainability goals which provide lasting benefits to the company, its customers and the environment.

As a corrugated box manufacturer that specializes in managing inventory for the food and beverage industries it is vitally important that we improve our sustainability and reduce our carbon footprint.  By focusing on the key areas of productivity improvement, minimizing waste, package design, and transportation, material handling and warehousing, we are on our way to meeting our objectives.

Recent achievements in improving our sustainability:

• In 2007 Sacramento Container achieved 22% improvement in productivity through the introduction of lean techniques, training, preventive and predictive maintenance. This improvement allows us to grow and increase volume with minimal increases in manpower and electricity.

• Our fleet has converted to all hi-cube trailers, improving the cube utilization by over 6%.  This has reduced the annual number of trucks shipped out by over 210.

• Replaced all mercury vapor lights with motion sensor low energy lights resulting in a 13% reduction in electrical usage.

• Established office paper recycling program.

• Established a recycling program for our PET strapping, removing over 400 cubic yards annually from the landfill

• Reclassified internal corrugated waste allowing 4,750 tons of high quality waste to ship directly to the paper mills and recycled into linerboard.

• Over the last four years Sacramento Container has invested over $8 million in new high speed, state of the art, energy efficient converting equipment. 

• Installed and implemented a real-time bar code scanning system.  The increased visibility of raw materials and finished goods eliminates wasted time and energy associated with material handling and warehousing.

• Installed a 2009 BHS 98” corrugator to produce our sheet requirements on-site reducing the number of inbound trucks by over 4,400 per year.

• Installed a 350’ section of automated conveyor eliminating the use of one forklift.

• Established a recycling program with GP Toledo utilizing a railcar backhaul removing over 250 trucks annually from the road.

The following are some industry data compiled by the Corrugated Packaging Alliance/FBA/AF& PA pertaining to improved sustainability.

• There are ten million more acres of forest today than in 1990.

• 93% of the wood fiber that goes into corrugated boxes comes from virgin fiber providers who follow Sustainable Forestry Initiative® practices.

• 60% of mill energy used in the U.S. comes from renewable bio-fuels.

• The amount of corrugated used to ship a unit of domestic industrial production has decreased 19% over the past 10 years.

• 75% of all corrugated packaging is recovered for recycling.

• The average corrugated box contains approximately 43% recovered fiber.

Sacramento Container Corporation - 2010 - "Changing the Rules"