Sloan Strives to End Plastic Pollution and Bans Plastic Bottles in Headquarters

Sloan is devoted to sustainability both inside and outside the restroom, and supports the Earth Day Network in its efforts to end plastic pollution.

As the growth of plastics, from its detrimental effects of injuring marine life to clogging waste streams and landfills, threatens the survival of the planet, Earth Day provides the inspiration needed to enact change, a change that Sloan has already been working toward.

“At Sloan, we recognize that the earth is a precious resource, one that we all need to work toward preserving,” says Patrick Boyle, Sloan director of corporate sustainability. “Not only are our products at the forefront of conservation inside the restroom, but our recycling and sustainability endeavors outside the restroom are working to make our planet a better place for everyone.”

As part of its Zero Landfill Initiative with the goal of 100 percent landfill conversion, Sloan is attempting to convert more waste from a landfill to a reusable source. As a result, Sloan diverted an additional 13 tons of material from the landfill last year and increased recycling by almost 23 tons in comparison to 2016.

Sloan has taken its drive for conservation all the way to its Franklin Park, Ill., headquarters where it has eliminated plastic bottles from its vending machines and cafeterias, replacing them with glass bottles and cans in an effort to decrease the one million plastic bottles the world buys every day. This marked a reduction from the 18,000 plastic bottles Sloan had previously been using on an annual basis.

Sloan products are built with conservation in mind, from the material that composes them to the technology they’re engineered on. Sloan flushometers are made of 99 percent reclaimed brass taken from old car radiators and other materials, while Sloan flushometers and faucets are lowering water consumption by up to 30 percent. In fact, its standard water-free urinals are eliminating water consumption altogether and conserving up to 40,000 gallons of water each year.

A majority of these products are designed with transparency in mind, as Sloan has published Environmental Product Declarations (EPD), Health Product Declarations (HPD) and Declare labels for many of its commercial restroom products to allow manufacturers to publicly declare the life-cycle sustainability of their products based on the inclusion of environment- and occupant-friendly materials and chemicals.

“Our fixtures and fittings now use such a small volume of water, our customers are looking beyond water savings to what our products are made of,” says Boyle. “We’ve responded with product transparency reports, which describe the environmental impact and human health impact of our products down to the minor details.”

Sloan has furthered that commitment to transparency and sustainability by issuing a series of carbon-free products, while offsetting their carbon usage with forestry credits through a partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation. A provider of nature-based solutions to sequester emissions, the Foundation is the sponsoring organization of Arbor Day 2018, set to take place on April 27.