Climate One Recycling, an Australian initiative aimed at reducing PVC waste, has confirmed a major purchase of equipment to improve the development of its innovative sustainable substrates.
“We have some equipment arriving in Queensland in July which will allow us to convert the polyester and PVC from banners into a printable sheet that we can then take back and recycle again,” said David Walton, group director of Omnigraphics, who is backing the Climate One initiative.
“This is pretty exciting and represents the next step in the Climate One business. We have a solution to take back banners and break them down and remanufacture into other streams, but this was previously outside of our control, relying on third party manufacturing.”
Walton has confirmed details regarding the as-yet unnamed product that is expected to be commercially available by the end of the year.
“We still have some work to do around the chemistry behind the circular process, but by Q4 this year we expect to have a product that can be on sold and used as an end product. So, at the moment we need to keep scaling to reach that goal. For most plastics – once you recycle them a couple of times – the polymers start separating and they have issues being reprocessed, so we have to keep some virgin product in there to keep it circular. At this stage, we are going to have a product with 70-80 per cent recycled content depending on the thickness,” he said.
“This material will go into exhibition spaces and short-term signage for conferences, conventions, or exhibitions. All of the convention and exhibition centres are looking at this material, and companies working in that events space are now increasingly under pressure to move into a position where the materials they are using are sustainable. We are looking to take a 30-day billboard and turn it into a product that can be extended once again for another five or 10 day cycle, that we can then get back and keep it going once again.”
Walton recommends printers who want to get involved to contact Climate One to find out more information.
“The easiest way to get involved is to visit climateone.com.au and follow the info link. They will then receive a quick email to explain what is involved and then we can go through with them logistics and collection locations and any costs involved. This will not necessarily work for every project because it is a premium product we are still not scaling into every market, but we want to offer a solution if the client is passionate about recycling and being sustainable,” Walton said.
“We are happy to work with any printer or installer or project manager as well as any end customer. We will deal with anyone that is looking to be sustainable – we ultimately want to support the whole industry as PVC is not going away. Yes, there are alternative products and they are good for some applications, but PVC is still a bulletproof product across most of our industry, so we are looking for a solution so that we can protect that product’s viability in the market long-term.”
Climate One was the winner of the 2024 Sustainability Award at the ProPrint Awards.
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