The Spanish manufacturing facility of leading PET bottle producer Amcor PET Packaging Europe/Asia has been awarded the internationally recognised ISO 14001 certification.
It becomes the second factory in the Amcor PET Packaging Europe group to achieve this status, following the accreditation of the UK site at Gresford in March 2000. ISO 14001 is a further development of ISO 9000 accreditation, involving the addition of the increasingly important area of environmental responsibility to a company's existing quality management programme.
Currently Amcor PET plants in France, Poland and Turkey are working towards implementing ISO 14001 values and priorities as part of the Company's plan to standardise ISO 14001 across all its factories.
"We see this accreditation as a vital part of our responsibilities to both our workforce and the localities in which we operate," explains Billy Jansen, Amcor PET Packaging's quality manager for European Manufacturing. "ISO 14001 demonstrates our commitment to ensuring the best and safest working practices, covering areas such as noise reduction, safe and clean work environments, effective waste management and recycling initiatives.
"Equally important, we have major customers who are ISO 14001 accredited and they require their suppliers to be also."
To achieve accreditation, the Amcor Spanish plant in Toledo carried out an environmental review of all its processes and procedures and from this introduced new initiatives and working practices.
Particular challenges included ensuring the plant complied fully with recently introduced local environmental legislation and introducing selective waste collection systems throughout every department.
Emphasis was also placed on staff training to ensure all employees were aware of the importance of environmental issues and the contribution individuals could make to the process.
The process to gain the certification was started in April 2001. Pedro Luceno (manufacturing manager) was the project leader, assisted by Emilio Muriel (safety and engineering division) and Paloma Serna (quality and environmental division). "This is a significant achievement, which recognises our commitment to environmental protection as a vital part of our existing high quality production and operating standards," said Alberto Blasco, General Manager of Amcor Toledo.
The Amcor Toledo plant was established in 1997. It manufactures PET bottles and preforms for a variety of markets including soft drinks, edible oil, mineral water, dairy and fruit drinks. Key customers include Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Danone and Schweppes. The facility is projected to produce over 1.2 billion units in 2002.
Amcor PET Packaging is currently the leading producer of PET packaging in the world, with 48 plants operating in 18 countries, two of which are bottle-to-bottle recycling plants, plus 16 facilities on-site with customers in six countries. The group produces PET preforms and bottles for soft drinks, water, juice, milk, hot-fill beverages, alcoholic beverages, food and non-food applications.