Pacific Gas and Electric Company Receives Recycling Award

San Francisco, CA— Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced it is the recipient of the California Integrated Waste Management Board’s Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP) award for its environmentally friendly waste management programs; including an efficient recycling program at the utility’s downtown San Francisco office complex and a program to replace wooden reels with steel reels that has saved about 14,000 trees.

Now in its 11th year, the WRAP awards recognize businesses that develop innovative and aggressive programs to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills. Businesses are evaluated on a number of programs, including waste prevention, materials reuse, recycling, recycled-product procurement, and employee education.

“It’s great to see how creative and innovative California businesses can be when it comes to reducing waste,” said Linda Moulton-Patterson, Chair of the Integrated Waste Management Board.

PG&E’s steel reel program replaces wooden reels used for transporting electric cable with steel reels. Before transitioning to the steel reel program in 1998, PG&E used approximately 2,000 wooden reels a year. Each wooden reel, constructed primarily of pine, contained about 390 board-feet of wood. These wooden reels cannot be re-used since the weight of the electric cable damages the wood. Since steel reels can be re-used, the company estimates it has saved 2.5 million pounds or 1.5 million board-feet of wood, which is the equivalent of about 14,000 trees.

Through its recycling program, PG&E’s two downtown office buildings recycle approximately 70 percent of their total waste stream.