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News Release from: J & G Environmental | Subject: Polypropylene strapping tape recycling service
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial
Team on 30 June 2008
Huge Volumes Of Strapping Tape Can Now
Be Recycled
Print waste management company J and G Environmental has claimed to have found new uses for the ubiquitous polypropylene strapping tape.
According to the company, strapping tape, which is a staple in most printers' waste skips has ended up in landfill sites in multi-million mile volumes However, now J and G Environmental said it has just completed a year-long strapping collection test case to see just how much of it is being thrown away by printing companies and how the material can be recycled
This article was originally published on Printingtalk on 15 May 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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The strapping is now being recycled and emerging as corrugated plastic tubing carrying cables alongside motorways, or as silage wrap and bin liners.
Widely used to secure products ranging from light cardboard packs to heavy pallet loads during transit, the poly strapping is usually bought in 100-metre reels but when its job is done, it has traditionally been seen as an ultimate disposal item, said J and G Environmental.
According to the company, huge volumes of the strapping have been dumped over the years but it is not biodegradable and is a by-product that the company believes should be taken more seriously as a source of reusable raw material.
J and G customer service manager, Richard Spreadbury, said: "We're used to dealing with mountains of printing waste but the amount of strapping we're sorting out has still been an eye-opener.
From the start we collected huge amounts of it and in just under a year we've picked up nearly 9,000 kilos of the stuff.
In one month alone the tally was over 4200 kilos." Spreadbury added that more printers were asking J and G to collect the strapping for recycling as part of their efforts to achieve the ISO 14001 environmental standard.
He explained: "Ideally we'd like customers to bale it or contract it in to barrels, which we can supply, for ease of transport.
Like all industrial waste management, it's all about good housekeeping.
What's certain is there's no place for poly strapping in landfill any more.".
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