Since 2005, we have significantly reduced the amount of material sent to landfill and increased the amount of material recovered for beneficial use. Our comprehensive waste diversion program diverts 99.6% of the solid waste leaving our facility from the landfill.  With the addition of more awareness and even more creative recycling programs, we hope to drive this number as close to 100% as possible.  Materials that are currently being collected for recycling include (but are certainly not limited to): cardboard, shrink wrap, glass, scrap metal, wood, paper, and plastic strapping.  One hundred percent of the spent grain and yeast is recovered and used as a protein rich supplement for cattle and dairy lots within 50 miles of the brewery.  A small portion feeds the Sierra Nevada cattle that are served in the restaurant. 
 

Compost
The newest addition to the Sierra Nevada resource recovery program is a HotRot composting system.  The HotRot is a large, in-vessel composting system that allows us to compost waste from the brewing process and discarded food scraps from our restaurant and is the first of its kind in the country.  Sierra Nevada invested in this state-of-the-art composting system due to a lack of composting options in our region.  We can compost filter pads from our filtration process, spent hops from the dry hopping process, spent grain screened from our water treatment plant, food and paper towels from break rooms, and all food and paper materials from our restaurant and concert venue.  We can feed approximately 5,000 lbs of organic material into the machine daily. The finished compost is highly valuable and provides a nutritious amendment for our hop field, restaurant garden, and employee garden area. This composting system helps us close the loop on discarded organics and prevents these materials from ending up in a landfill.