Wegmans integrates its active commitment to waste reduction throughout its operations. Periodic store visits are conducted by the company's Resource Recovery Manager and in-store teams monitor waste streams and educate store personnel. Wegmans is one of the few supermarkets to recycle waxed corrugated cardboard in the same bale as regular corrugated cardboard and each of its Pennsylvania stores has two balers capable of producing one-thousand pound bales. In addition, Wegmans participates in the Lackawanna County's food composting project at Sheyland Farm to which the company has so far donated two tons of food waste. Stores send their unsaleable food items such as dented cans, broken boxes and damaged packages to Wegmans Reclamation Center where edible products are separated from those that do not meet health standards.
Edible food is donated to local charities and food banks.
Dented cans are sent to a farm which opens them and uses the contents as organic compost before recycling the empty cans. Food unfit for human consumption is sent to a salvage company for processing into animal feed and fertilizer. The company's waste reduction and recycling programs have kept 2,591 tons of material out of the waste stream, resulting in a 54.7 percent recycling rate in 1995. Cooper's Seafood House and Dee Jays Hoagies, Scranton. Northeast Office, Department of Environmental Protection commercial recycling Award for successfully integrating recycling into their operations.