14 DAY TRIAL // Spirits company Bacardi has recently announced that, in an attempt to improve on its ecological footprint, it has taken up the habit of recycling old barrels that it uses when brewing rum instead of just throwing them away once they are no longer of any use.
The spirits company explains that it currently relies on American white oak barrels in order to give the rum that it makes and markets its very particular flavor, i.e. richness, aroma, and smoothness.
The trouble is that, after holding rum inside them for about 20 years in a row, American white oak barrels quit being a proper home for this spirit and must therefore be retired and replaced with new ones. Business Green tells us that, instead of sending these old barrels to landfill, the Bacardi Corporation in Puerto Rico now puts them to better use by grounding them into woodchips.
It thus becomes possible for the American white oak barrels to be used as mulch, i.e. a layer of material spread over an area of soil to preserve moisture, improve fertility, and/or halt weed growth.
Besides, it would appear that mulch made from old barrels used by the Bacardi Corporation in Puerto Rico also helps make the area where it is spread more visually appealing.
Commenting on this initiative, Lissette Sepulveda, environmental health and safety coordinator for the Bacardi Corporation, stated as follows:
“If we didn't recycle, our barrels would eventually go to a landfill, which is not the best option for a small island like Puerto Rico.”
Furthermore, “Turning old rum barrels into mulch helps achieve our global sustainability goal to return to the environment at least as much as we take away.”
By the looks of it, the mulch made from Bacardi's white oak barrels chiefly serves to beautify the rum distillery's 127-acre campus. However, company employees can take some of it home and use it in their own gardens.
The spirits company hopes that, by 2017, it will manage to further improve on its ecological footprint by cutting its greenhouse gas emissions and its water consumption by 50% and 55%, respectively.
Bacardi is also taking steps to reduce the weight of its packaging by 10% by said date, and also ensure that 40% of the sugarcane-derived products it needs in order to make rum comes from sustainable sources.
By 2022, on the other hand, the company wants to use 100% sustainable sugarcane, reduce packaging weight by 15%, and see to it that none of the 27 production sites it operates sends waste to landfill.