We’d all like to rest easier at night. If you’ve got a Hollander pillow, there’s more of a reason to feel comfortable. Hollander Home Fashions, the largest manufacturer of pillows in the U.S., plans to send zero waste to landfill within two years. The Oakland, CA-based company claims to be well on its way to meeting that goal, having found recycling streams for much of its trash.
Hollander, which sells over 35 million pillows a year through most major retailers, estimated it was putting 250,000 pounds of wrapping in landfills annually. The company has developed new manufacturing practices to minimize inefficiencies in production. “We took a look at everything we were throwing out, and we wanted to target the big things first,” said Ron Capranos, senior vice president of manufacturing and head of Hollander’s sustainability efforts. Hollander is able to sell its waste to recyclers, but it has also seen its disposal costs go down to about 38 percent less than last year. Hollander is also working to cut the carbon emissions of its trucking and reduce product packaging, sustainability efforts that compliment its Zero Waste program. The company estimates it has cut 4.2 million square feet of corrugate and uses 2.3 million less cubic feet of shipping space annually.

