There is one way to get reprimanded at soap manufacturer EZ Brite: Throw something in the trash can. (Well, if you can find one.)

The producer of 39 all-natural kitchen-cleaning products hasn’t had a Dumpster since relocating to its Westlake headquarters in 1991.

“Everybody’s going green. And we have been laughing about it,” says Ed Aghajanian, EZ Brite president and avid recycler. The company
has been built with a sustainable mindset from the start. “If you make a mistake chemically, you can’t go to the Dumpster. You have to figure out
what to do with it. We want to give employees the mentality that, ‘Oh, I made a mistake. How can I fix it?’ ”

Everything at EZ Brite gets reused or recycled. Plastic and metal drums are cleaned and either reused for EZ Brite products or shipped back to the distributor. Pumps recycle all flush water. If a wooden pallet breaks, it’s fixed or the wood is chipped and turned into mulch. Second-grade cleaning products that can’t be sold are donated to local food kitchens.

Not even Styrofoam packaging peanuts find their way to a trash can: They are bagged, saved and reused to ship EZ Brite products made from natural ingredients such as coconut oil, feldspar, food-grade citric acid and calcium carbonate. No phosphates, harsh sulfuric acids or bleach are listed on the EZ Brite labels. Instead, the company uses natural abrasives such as pumice as primary scrubbing agents in its soaps. The company is also developing a fume-free oven cleaner for General Electric.

Even the warehouse shelving was pieced together from scrap wood the neighboring cabinet company threw out.

“Half the battle is finding something to do with it,” Aghajanian says, pointing to a box filled with second-grade sponges. While the sponges cannot be sold due to minor defects, they are usable in other ways: Aghajanian is looking for a local art teacher who may be able to use them in class.

But the recycling-minded Aghajanian doesn’t stop there. He is also the ultimate bargain shopper. From out of a bucket he picks up a large, stainless steel, food-grade valve. Each one is worth $300, but Aghajanian bought eight for $500. There’s a stack of 12 hoses, normally $400 each, but these cost him $50 total. He has dozens of slightly used, good quality items throughout the warehouse he’s saved from heading to a landfill — mostly purchased from shuttered producers or those who could no longer use the equipment for large-scale manufacturing. His staff replicated a $6,000 air filter for $400.

While he can rattle off prices on every piece of equipment in the warehouse, he can’t give a grand total to the amount he has saved over the years. “Our goal is not to make money [off recycling or salvaging],” he says. “Our goal is to find a home for everything without it costing us any money.”Ed Aghajanian has EZ Brite cleaning up with a philosophy that promotes recycling everything.