waste not food at costco is donated to local food banks; cardboard boxes are collected for recycling we're taking to reduce waste going to landfill by sheri flies here are many good reasons why we want to minimize the amount of are running out of space in many landfill is a more expensive disposal option we want to avoid given the massive scale of our opera- our potential impact on the global waste the amount of waste from our operations done and what we want to do that delivers these items to local food banks these donations added up to 51 million meals for families in need in fiscal year 2019 food that can't be donated is recycled chicken grease produced from rotisserie zoos and commercial compost facilities costco photo studio sheri flies is costco assistant vice president of global sustainability and compliance partnering to reduce food waste food is a huge part of our business at but still food-safe items and create new products rather than throwing out perfectly chicken goes into our chicken noodle soup other edible food products are donated to food banks and other nonprofits efficient and food-safe distribution network reusing and recycling items we have grown our partnership with world vision and donate first-quality donated items valued at over $76.2 million to people in need in 30 countries we recycle many items used in our these items are then repurposed by third some of our waste is used to generate estimated 9,500 homes for a month our goal is to continually find ways to improve in these areas it takes a team feeding america and world various organizations to pro- solutions to meet our needs vide expertise in keeping links to these organiza- while we often use local of our waste management sustainability commitment go to costco.com; search "sustainability commitment" and then select "operations" and "waste stream manage- ment."-sf
