Raw materials

Manufacturing high performance Zyplex is dependent on two things: the excellence of our technical processes on site and our ability to source high quality industrial and domestic plastic waste.

Each year the UK generates over 80 million tonnes of waste from households, commerce and industry. Currently only a small amount of this waste is bought by waste processors and sold on to manufacturers to make new products. The rest either goes to landfill or is exported to China. Both these options are bad for the environment and bad for the UK economy.

We are committed to changing this practice. We believe that the government should be actively discouraging the export of waste to China and helping local authorities and businesses to find ways of reducing landfill in the UK. We buy industrial waste from a diverse range of organisations in the public and private sectors and we operate a number of closed loop recycling schemes, whereby we take waste from customers and convert it into new recycled products which are supplied back to them. We also buy domestic waste from local authorities, provided that it meets the necessary quality requirements. To reduce our carbon footprint, we source our raw materials from as local an area as possible.

We use many different types of plastic as the raw material for Zyplex, from bottle tops to wheelie bins to car bumpers. The plastics can be supplied in bales, crates, pallets, bags or loose and collected by us or delivered to our factory.

Raw materials being processed through the Iplas factory

Polymer	Products	Uses before & after recycling
Polythene Terephthalate	Pop bottles	Polyester fibres, thermoformed sheet, strapping, soft drink bottles
High Density Polyethylene	Wheelie bins, milk bottles	Bottles, grocery bags, recycling bins, agricultural pipe, base cups, car stops, playground equipment, plastic lumber, milk bottles
Polyvinyl Chloride	Plumbing, air ventilation pipes, window frames	Pipe, fencing and non food bottles
Low Density Polyethylene	Packaging wrap, on reels, bales or crumbed	Plastic bags, various containers, dispensing bottles, wash bottles, tubing, various moulded lab equipment
Polypropylene	Buckets, car bumpers	Autoparts and industrial fibres
Polystyrene	Seed trays, food trays	Desk accessories, cafeteria trays, toys, insulation board and expanded polystyrene products (e.g Styrofoam)
Other	Traffic cones, garden furniture	Garden furniture, traffic bollards, pipes, toys