Market-leading cable
management manufacturer Marshall-Tufflex is calling on specifiers and
contractors to join it in driving up the sector’s eco credentials by specifying
and installing PVC-U trunking solutions with a minimum content of 50% recycled
plastic – and say no to single use plastics.
The
British company wants
to put plastics recycling at the heart of specification and purchasing
decisions in an effort to divert the amount of waste plastic going to landfill
and ease demand for oil-rich virgin PVC.
“Our ultimate goal is
for all PVC-U cable management specifications to state that systems should be
manufactured from a minimum of 50% recycled plastic,” said Marshall-Tufflex CEO
Paul Hetherington.
“We want to start the conversation throughout the
supply chain, from architects to end-user clients, encouraging everyone to make
more informed decisions when selecting, buying, installing and using PVC-U
trunking systems. We take our impact on the environment seriously
and want the rest of the sector to join us; we’d like to see the whole plastics
cable management industry reduce reliance on single use plastics and recycle as
much as possible,” he added.
Marshall-Tufflex has
long used recycled plastics in its market-leading solutions, the high quality
of this material is one of the reasons the company leads the industry. Due to
investing in advanced technology, the company has been able to push the recycled
content of all its manufactured PVC-U products to 80% (latest annual statistics
for May 2017 to April 2018), with some products produced from 100% recycled
material.
“It’s
a little-known fact that Marshall-Tufflex has been using recycled plastics in
the manufacturing process for more than 20 years, with some of our products
made from 100% recycled material, which is great news for both customers and the planet,” said Mr Hetherington.
“We hope our drive to
encourage the market to use products with a high recycled PVC content will
encourage other manufacturers to up their recycling and reuse efforts. At the
moment we stop the equivalent in weight of 300 double decker buses of PVC-U going
to landfill each year. If more cable management producers joined us we could
double or treble that amount, which would make a terrific impact on the
environmental performance of our sector and really contribute towards a
circular economy,” Mr Hetherington added.
The
company, which produces more than 16 million metres of PVC-U cable management
annually at its manufacturing plant in Hastings,
East Sussex, has worked closely with recycling partners to secure high grade
recycled plastic sourced from the window fabrication industry (manufacturing
off-cuts are re-chipped for recycling). Because it is window grade, the raw material is stronger
and more robust than virgin extrusion grade PVC-U cable management
material.
Mr Hetherington
continued: “We have worked closely with our recycling partners over the past
few years to produce a sustainable, recycled material ideal for manufacturing
cable management products. Our focus has been on quality and testing to
maximise the recycled content which also improves the quality of our products.
It’s a programme that has worked extremely well and we are very proud to now be
using such high levels of recycled material.”
Marshall-Tufflex is
the UK’s leading manufacturer of cable management solutions. Company founder
Harold Cirket pioneered plastic extrusion in the UK more than 75 years ago and
his spirit of research, development and innovation remains at the heart of the
business.
