Rochester’s Genesee Brewery Saving Mother Nature One Step At a Time

Photo: Geneseebeer.com

It is hard to live in Rochester and not come in contact with the Genesee Brewery. It’s home to a Rochester staple — Genesee Ale — and many can recognize their white and red beer can from a mile away.

But what many Rochesterians don’t know is that this brew house is slowly giving back to Mother Nature.

Genesee Brewery has announced a partnership with the Rochester Institute of Technology to change its ways. Even though they are the oldest beer producer in the state, dating back to 1878, they are using help from RIT scientists to limit the brewery’s carbon footprint.

Earlier this year, brewery officials asked the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at RIT for some inspiration. Mark Minunni, manager of the brewery, explains to The Democrat and Chronicle, “We were good at recycling, but we wanted to go to the next level.”

The institute suggested various ways to improve the brewery’s sustainability at various stages of its process. While it’s undetermined whether the majority of their ideas can actually be completed, the amount of recycling done at the brewery has, in fact, increased.

From February to July, Genesee diverted an additional 32 tons of recyclable material from entering a landfill, bringing the total amount of non-food waste recycled to a full 78%.

Some of the offered suggestions include cutting down on the amount of carbon dioxide and pollutants spewed by the factory. Pollution is a severe problem within the U.S., as cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of all American emissions, emitting around 24 pounds of carbon dioxide and other global-warming gasses for every single gallon of gas consumed.

Overall, these environmental changes are just part of a $39 million dollar modernization endeavor happening at the brewery this year. These ideas are small, but mighty, and include changing potato chip bag suppliers so that future chip bags can be recycled, switching plastic packaging materials, and selling excess malt to farmers to use as cattle feed.