Two years ago, UK-based Goplasticpallets.com – The Responsible Plastic Pallet Company announced its commitment to recycling every plastic pallet and plastic box it supplies to customers at the end of the container's useful life.
To that end, the company launched a recycling scheme in February 2019, that aimed to make it as simple as possible for its customers to recycle their plastic pallets and boxes.
Goplasticpallets.com offer two recycling solutions, explained managing director Jim Hardisty.
“For volumes in excess of 1500kg, customers can take advantage of our hassle-free collection service, where we will arrange a collection and transport the products straight to our partner’s recycling facility in Belgium. Customers can arrange for smaller loads to be dropped off at our warehouse at their own convenience, where once consolidated we will transport in full truck loads to Belgium – ensuring our trucks are running at their maximum efficiency.”
The Belgian facility, he explained, is the fully-licensed pallet recycler closest to the UK.
“By recycling our customers’ plastic pallets and boxes in Belgium we guarantee that they will not only be ethically recycled…but also that the recovered material will be reused to make the next wave of high quality, long life plastic pallets and boxes,” he said. Currently, 96% of the plastic pallets Goplasticpallets.com supplies are made from recycled materials. The remaining 4% are produced from the virgin material required, for example, for some food and pharmaceutical products.
Two years on, uptake to the scheme remains relatively low, at just 0.56% of the company’s customer base.
Jim Hardisty, however, is unfazed by the low uptake, explaining it is a ‘clear sign of the durability and long lifespan of our plastic pallets and boxes’. The pallets his company produces are built to last up to 10 times longer than a wooden pallet, he said.
Since launching the scheme, the company has collected back and recycled more than 474 tonnes of plastic waste from customers’ used plastic pallets and boxes.
Putting this into perspective, Hardisty stressed that ‘474 tonnes of plastic could make 22,652 heavy-duty 1210 pool pallets or a mighty 76,669 nestable 1210 pallets’.
In November, Goplasticpallets.com expanded the scheme to include any plastic pallets and boxes, regardless of who supplied them.
“With this in mind we’ve set an ambitious recycling target for 2021 of more than 260 tonnes of plastic waste,” said Hardisty.