What do you ask the president of the world’s most powerful company when the two of you are just hanging out at Walmart headquarters?

In my case, I ask David Cheesewright about the gum drum. “What the heck is that thing?” I inquire, pointing to what looks like a child’s toy drum attached to a recycling bin. There are loads of these contraptions all over Walmart’s low-slung head office in the sprawling city of Mississauga, Ont. You can’t miss them. So during a break in our photo shoot with Cheesewright, president and CEO of Walmart Canada, I just have to ask what the drums are for. “Oh those,” he replies. “The thing is, when you want your office to produce zero waste, you have to recycle everything. And that includes gum.” Together we peer down the drum’s tiny opening. Sure enough, a few chewed-up morsels have been deposited by Walmart staffers. When I wonder aloud whether all this old chewing gum is going to be recycled into new sticks of Trident for Walmart’s shelves, Cheesewright just laughs.

In fact, all that chewing gum gets turned into compost and organic fertilizer. It’s part of a massive effort within Walmart to eliminate waste entirely. Next to the gum drum sits a box to collect polystyrene–the foamy white stuff used in cheap coffee cups and product packaging. Polystyrene is nasty stuff for the planet. It takes hundreds of years to break down. I’m told Cheesewright has an especial hate-on for polystyrene and doing something about it has become something of a priority. Two years ago Walmart found a company that could recycle it. Today all the polystyrene from head office and 30 Walmart stores in southern Ontario is shipped out and turned into fire-resistant commercial insulation.

Read the rest of this article at Canadian Grocer Innovators