|
Kinder.com.au Editorial
For more than 50 years, many products, both consumer and
industrial, have been made from some type of plastic. Its physical and
chemical properties give it versatility in countless applications,
with new uses for plastic appearing almost daily.
 In industrial applications, the strength
and versatility of plastics has lead to its use in areas where
steel has been more traditionally used. One such industry that is
seeing the ever-growing use of plastics because of what can be a
particularly aggressive environment, is the Bulk Materials Handling
Industry. A typical example of this, is the K-Polymer range of
Conveyor Rollers offered by Victoria based Kinder and Co., which are
manufactured from high density polyethylene (HDPE), or their range
of Elevator Buckets, manufactured from the same type of composite
material.
There is no doubting the benefits that these materials offer the
Bulk Materials Handling Industry. The K-Polymer conveyor rollers
for example, when compared to steel rollers are 50% lighter, less
aggressive on the belt, quieter, resistant to wear and wont rust,
yet they maintain a competitive price advantage over their
traditional steel counterparts.
But with the growing use of plastics across all
industrial sectors, comes the issue of its disposal at the end of its
useful life. Unlike for homeowners, there are few collection
schemes in place by local government, to deal with recycling
post-industrial plastics waste. Consequently, far too much
industrial plastic waste ends up in
landfill tips, where it can take up to 400 years to break
down!
In today’s environmentally conscious society, increasing
pressure is being placed on industry to put controls in place to protect the environment. However,
unlike the legislation that is in place for such things as
atmospheric emissions, or water and land pollutants, the disposal of recyclable
materials is pretty much self-policing.
So in what is believed to be an industry first, Kinder and Co
are taking the responsible approach once plastic components supplied by the
company, come to the end of their life cycle. This “cradleto-cradle” solution
prevents Kinder plastic conveyor components from
ending up on a landfill tip.
 By arrangement, clean and palletised
components, which were previously supplied by the company, can be
returned for recycling. These plastic
components then end up as pallets, shipping dunnage or fence posts, which of course adds the
further environmental benefit of conserving
timber!
Instead of paying to dispose of this waste in
landfill, it makes much better business sense to recycle. The environmental benefits of recycling are
undisputable and the economic benefits are clear. Although
future changes in legislation are almost certain to force industry
to take a more responsible approach to this issue, organisations
voluntarily involved in recycling post-industrial plastics waste
now, are less likely to come under attack for poor environmental
performance.
Neil Kinder, Managing Director of Kinder & Co. said “with
this scheme, we are taking a responsible approach to environmental leadership and in
conjunction with our customers looking towards the future”.
Although this unique approach has only just been introduced, the
company already has customers who have collection points in place
on site, ready for when they next replace these components.
To better understand the “cradle-to-cradle” solution for
conveyor and elevator components offered by Kinder and Co., contact Neil
Kinder on 03 9587 9244 or email neilkinder@kinder.com.au |
