Abatan invests in plastics recycling programme
Can you imagine what our modern society would be like without the use of plastic. For the production of all sorts of tools we use in our daily life, it replaces raw materials that have become rare, and therefore too expensive. Moreover, plastic has the advantage that it can be processed quite easily, that it can adopt practically any shape or form and be used in countless applications.
Up to 400 years to be fully desintegrated
However, when plastic comes into play as raw material for producing wrapping-up and packaging products such as bags, shrinkfoils, cellophane, … they may come in handy and practical, but once they are no longer used or thoughtlessly abandoned, they turn into a real threat for our environment. The production of plastics too is quite a harmful process, but when it is carelessly abandoned in nature, it can take more than 400 years before its is being fully desintegrated.
Plastic wrappings from now on collected and recycled
Manufacturers, distributors and consumers alike, all assume responsibility when it comes to using plastics (and other materials) for wrapping-up and/or carrying puposes.
From next February onwards, merchants will be encouraged to collect during market days all plastic wrappings and to bring them to a central point for recycling purposes. Only flexible plastic wrappings are being focussed on, so no bottles or small containers or crates, or plastic mixed with other waste.
Abatan has made a deal with Val-I-Pac that will make dedicated plastic bags available to all merchants against payment of a small contribution. These bags, on the sole condition that they contain selected plastic waste collected by those merchants having signed the “cleanliness charter”, are replaced for free when brought in at the collection point . All Val-I-Pac bags are picked up by a firm called “Oud papier”, who also collect all our cardboard packaging for recycling. By doing so, we avoid extra containers to be placed, as the Vai-I-Pack bags can simply be thrown into the containers for cardboard recycling.
With this particular effort, Abatan hopes that the market place will at least look a lot cleaner after each market day, but above all it wants to deliver an extra effort in reaching its ultimate goal, i.e. a sustainable enterprise status.