or how we re-purposed the leftovers from the production of these veterinary cages into award-winning event flooring……
So we were absolutely delighted when David Pattenden, the marketing manager from market leader Burtons Veterinary Equipment, approached us with a fantastic proposition. Their manufacturing plant generated a reasonable amount of plastic offcuts when fabricating their best-selling pet cages – could we repurpose this material into their exhibition flooring?
Carpet is usually the biggest area of single use plastic at exhibitions – aside from all of the carpet tape, stands are also usually covered with polythene during build up. Some of the carpets are recyclable, but they are all virgin plastic and thrown away after only a couple of day’s use.
No-one knows how much is recycled, or burnt, or thrown into landfill, but to give an indication of the scale of the problem, there’s about 6 million square metres of exhibition space every year in the UK. That’s a whole mountain of single use plastic and it’s been that way for decades.
From a production point of view it also means that less plastic is required for manufacture – less than 5kgs per square metre.
Burtons were able to supply us with three big bags of offcuts and this was plenty to make them up 50 square metres of flooring – this would be the first time that we could make exhibition flooring from plastic waste, that actually came from the client.
The type of plastic they use for their cages is a high quality Polypropylene CoPolymer, which is ideal for recycling. It’s relatively low energy and doesn’t release noxious fumes like other plastics such as PVC (no-one likes PVC).
As pre-consumer plastic, it was also clean and free from graphics or stickers. It came in a couple of different whites and beige – the first part of the process was to grind it down and de-dust it.
This separates the smaller particles that are unsuitable for injection moulding, leaving granules approximately 4mm ready for manufacture. We are keeping the ‘dust’ so that it can be extruded into 3D printer filament, in order that it can also be used for production, for a zero waste solution.
Cold water then rushes around the tool to rapidly solidify the plastic, which is then ejected and the tiles are assembled into metre square sheets as it comes off the machine.
The area was 8m x 4m and the whole floor was assembled by one person in about an hour, including electrics.
Where-ever power or data is required, you simply remove one of the tiles and then clip the sheets together. There are no tools or fixings required and no special skills.
Burtons aim to do 4 or 5 shows a year and their flooring should be good for around three years – after which, it can be ground back down and remoulded into fresh stock.
If they do happen to get any damage it’s very quick and easy to replace tiles, rather than a whole sheet.
In summary it’s quicker, cheaper and more sustainable than anything else on the market. If you would like us to make exhibition flooring from plastic waste, that comes from your own manufacturing, please don’t hesitate to get in touch
We really appreciate that Burtons were bold enough to commit to a sustainable alternative – plenty of companies give it lip-service, but rarely do they walk like they talk!
