Here's some good news for the planet. British outdoor brands Rab and Lowe Alpine (owned by Equip Outdoor Technologies) together with the European Outdoor Group (EOG) have presented the first results of their polybag recycling trial, carried out within the EOG’s Single Use Plastics (SUP) Project.
Testing out a new packing process, Equip removed polybags from their direct to consumer orders and recycled them rather than leaving the responsibility to consumers, which usually means ending up in landfill.
In this first uplift, almost 350kg of polybags were recycled with a specialist polybag reprocessing partner identified through the SUP project.
To avoid recycling systems being contaminated, Equip ensured to use minimal printing, tape or labels on their polybags. Also, Equip reduced the size of their polybags, choosing to roll and fold products differently to take up less space.
The quality of the recycled material is extremely high and commodity-grade, with minimal degradation in quality and the ability for the plastic to be used in further transparent applications.
In short, this means this plastic could easily be turned back into polybags, and most importantly that it will remain in the resource stream.
With their polybag recycling trial, the EOG and Equip aim to cut down the use of virgin plastic, keeping plastics in use for longer and establishing a global recycled plastic market led by the outdoor industry.
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