As a manufacturer, USG recognizes the importance of safeguarding the environment. Our solid history of environmental responsibility includes providing product solutions that reduce environmental impact, reduce waste, conserve resources and recycle materials whenever possible.

Our goal is to preserve valuable natural resources while supporting clean air and easing disposal problems for public utilities. For several decades, we have used innovative technology to reduce our impact on the environment:

• We have used environmental control equipment since before the Clean Air Act was passed in 1969
  
  
• We were the first corporation to use 100% flue gas desulphurization (FGD) recaptured gypsum instead of mined gypsum (air pollution regulations require coal-fired electrical power plants to add FGD equipment to limit their emissions of sulfur dioxide and help reduce acid rain)
  
  
• Our gypsum recycling program partner, Gypsum Recycling America, LLC (GRA), collects new gypsum wallboard scrap, which is then converted into a gypsum powder for reuse in USG's wallboard manufacturing operations
  
  
• Our new USG Ceiling Panel Recycling Program collects and recycles customers' used ceiling panels
  
  
• We have earned Wildlife Habitat Council Certification for implementation of a comprehensive wildlife habitat management program for our Brown and Victor Mines in Midland, California, and for the Alabaster Plant in Tawas City, Michigan
  
  
• We won a 2002 Virginia Statewide Mining Reclamation Award for successfully returning the site of our Locust Cove underground mine in Smyth County, Va., to its original state: hills and meadows inhabited by deer, turkey and other wildlife
  
  
• Our wallboard plants have a 95 percent recovery rate, and part of the remaining 5 percent is recycled into small strips to support stacks of gypsum panels
  
  
• Water treatment equipment installed at United States Gypsum Company paper mills and USG Interiors ceiling panel plants recycles water, reducing effluent discharges to municipal treatment systems
  
  
• We convert 150,000 tons of slag per year into manufacturing mineral wool for ceiling panels; the use of slag eliminates the need to mine naturally occurring materials while reducing landfill material
  
  
• We helped establish the U.S. Green Building Council in 1993