fbpx
Log in

Recycling initiatives offer cost savings and environmental benefits

MacroArt buildings

Amari Plastics Bristol Branch Manager Rob Weeks presenting the ARI Certificate to MD of Luminati Waycon, Steve Senior.
Increasingly, signmakers and graphics companies are looking to their suppliers to provide recycling options for waste production materials – and suppliers are responding. Amari Plastics plc, leading UK distributor of sheet and profile plastics, and Macro Art, huge format digital printer, are two companies that have recently introduced recycling initiatives.

The Amari Recycling Initiative (ARI) is a unique system within the UK, because Amari Plastics is the only company that has committed itself to environmental change by taking control of its own waste, says Amari Plastics.

Other UK schemes are sub-contracted to third party waste management or recycling companies, where there is no direct control over the third party’s policies. But Amari Plastics plc has owned and invested in its own recycling company, called Recycled Plastics, for more than two years.

Amari Plastics launched ARI in October 2008 as a tried and trusted scheme that had already been piloted in its own business.

ARI is tailored to each individual customer and the system offered fits not just a company’s waste profile, but also practical business issues such as available space and ability to sort waste. Companies signing up to use the service include sign manufacturers, exhibition and graphics businesses, and plastics fabricators such as Luminati Waycon.

Steve Senior, Managing Director of Luminati Waycon, commented: “The scheme was exceptionally easy to introduce. We had a visit and site survey from Recycled Plastics, the wholly owned subsidiary of Amari Plastics Plc that handles the recycling, and this determined the style and number of cages we would need. After that they were delivered and the system was put straight into our production.

“I felt that this was the right thing to do. Amari Plastics are the major supplier to Luminati and they were offering a closed loop system of not only supplying sheet but removing my scrap.

“The certification of the process allows us to show our customers that we are moving in the right direction and it supports other separate initiatives that Luminati has taken to strengthen its environmental credentials – Luminati has recently committed to reduce its energy consumption by 10 per cent during 2009.”

Most plastics can be recycled and turned into some form of useful product such as mugs, key rings, injection moulded items and packaging materials. The more plastic waste that ARI can utilise, the less goes to landfill.

With Recycled Plastic paying for the majority of the scrap that it takes away, companies using ARI benefit from an additional income as well as reducing outgoings on landfill costs.

ARI is designed for users of acrylic, polycarbonate, polyester, polypropylene, aluminium composite and some PVCs. To find out more or to register with your local Amari Plastics branch, go to www.amariplastics.com

Macro Art teamed up with ALD Industry in its initiative for the disposal of reinforced PVC banner and mesh materials.

Huge format digital printer Macro Art grew by 20 per cent last year and used 1,100,000sq.m. of materials weighing close to 500,000 tons. Without action all this material, whether production waste or creative images, ultimately would have been disposed of in land fill sites with a limited life.

“No more,” says John Walker Managing Director of Macro Art. “All our production waste is now bagged or baled, pelletized and recycled in a process that is guaranteed to be completed within the UK. Even the new end products are themselves recyclable.”

Macro Art is now selling the concept to its customers. After a printed image is taken down Macro Art offers to collect these printed products, remove any metal eyelets and put the used prints through the same process as its own production waste. Customers contribute towards these costs, which rarely exceed 30p per square metre.

John Walker said “This represents about a four per cent environmental charge to what it says on the tin – to dispose of in landfill costs almost as much without the benefits of a greener image for the printing industry.”

By teaming up with ALD Industry, which had been working closely with Verseidag on the project for almost a year before cracking the problem, Macro Art has found a UK solution to the closed loop that the company was seeking.

More details are available from Macro Art at macroart.co.uk or telephone 01767 677946. For information about ALD Industry, go to www.aldgroup.co.uk or telephone 01483 277387.

Slideshow CK