CSR in Supply Chains of Brewing Industry - Technology Management for Sustainable Production and Logistics - page 103

3.2 Reverse Logistics
In the modern economy there are few plants that may be called wasteless, which
usually results from technological constraints. However, enterprises of high environ-
mental awareness are trying to approach the assumptions of wasteless production. In
order to do this, they are trying to increase material durability, select appropriate raw
materials and optimise their use, and re-use the same materials. If it is not likely to
avoid waste production, all possible effort should be made to recycle it.
Breweries are complex units, where processes of beer production are accom-
panied by both management-related processes and secondary processes, without
which the enterprises would not be able to realise the primary processes. The sec-
ondary processes taking place at breweries include, among others, reverse logis-
tics. Appropriate use of a brewery's capacity and effective action taken by its
management in the face of changes resulting, for instance, from amendments to
the “Waste Disposal Act” may decide on efficiency of the activity in this area.
Breweries are specific organisations in that respect as two types of activity may be
distinguished within reverse logistics (see Fig. 4 ), namely:
• activity connected with recycling individual packaging used to package and dis-
tribute beer,
• and activity connected with management of waste understood as “all substances
or objects whose holders dispose of, intend to do so or are obliged to dispose
of” (Lisiecka-Biełanowicz et al. 2014 ).
All around the world, breweries generate relatively large amounts of waste. An
appropriate approach to waste management, however, makes it possible to treat the
waste produced as by-products because a lot of this waste is valuable for farmers,
recycling plants and other companies. Waste minimisation and finding alternative
ways to use it are key methods of environment protection. Waste management is
Fig. 4 Types of reverse logistics in a brewery