Recycled materials

When you choose a quality that is made from industrial or consumer waste, you save much more CO2 emissions with consumer waste. It is therefore important not only to talk about recycled sources – but also about which sources they are. Recycling consumer waste is a more demanding job. You have to collect, sort and clean the waste before it can be used again. But the material is saved and can be used again, which saves the environment from new raw materials and prevents waste from ending up in waste incineration or landfill.

KOMPAN uses narrower streams of consumer waste, for example used textiles, fishing nets and food packaging waste. We can control the quality better than if we used a very wide range of waste. Household waste can be a mixture of many different sources.

Every year, more than 640,000 tons of fishing nets, ropes, etc. are abandoned or discarded, which would end up in the oceans if they were not collected and recycled. The used fishing nets are collected in Europe, North America, Africa and a number of countries in Asia. Although fishing nets are made of different types of plastic, a mechanical method has been developed to cut the nets and ropes into small pieces, which are subsequently processed and converted into granules. It is a complicated process to ensure a high and uniform quality that can replace newly produced plastic. The Danish company Plastix (www.plastixglobal.com) is among the leaders in the field.

At KOMPAN, the recycled granules are included in various types of playground equipment as raw material in climbing structures and panels. We use used fishing nets and ropes wherever the blue/green color is used. That is. the BLOQX climbing tools, the blue/green color in our HDPE panels and other elements that are blue/green (Teal). This significantly reduces our CO2 emissions.

European consumers discard approx. 11 kg. of textiles each year, most of which (87%) are incinerated or landfilled. The EU has therefore adopted an action plan for the circular economy, which aims to promote the recycling of discarded textiles, among others. (Read more here: The environmental impact of textile production and waste | Topics | European Parliament). There are various recycling technologies for textiles, where the textile fibers are used in new products via mechanical, thermomechanical, chemical or thermochemical recycling. It is not only the clothing industry that has opened its eyes to the potential of textile waste, as both natural fibers (cotton and wool) and synthetic fibers (polyester, nylon and acrylic) can be used in other products.

At KOMPAN, textile waste has proven to be very useful for posts, where the textile fibers are processed and combined with recycled plastic from consumer waste. We call the product TexMadeTM. Thanks to TexMadeTM, we have been able to replace traditional steel posts with posts made from textile waste and recycled plastic bags. The result is a robust playground post whose CO2 emissions per kg are less than those of a galvanized steel post. The textile posts are used in our building system, as well as in our swings.

KOMPAN primarily uses consumer waste, but we also recycle waste from industry to the extent possible, although the savings in CO2 emissions are not as great as with consumer waste. Surplus wood from own production is sawn and collected so that it can be used as fuel. The dust from the processing of Robina wood is collected via ventilation and cleaning, after which it is compressed into wood briquettes. Employees at the factory in Brno have the opportunity to purchase fuel and wood briquettes, which they can use as an alternative to heating their homes with gas. In general, offcuts and other surplus from materials, including HDPE, steel, aluminum, etc., are sent for recycling.

Packaging waste from shipping is handled locally, where installers are contractually obliged to ensure that the packaging is sorted and subsequently delivered to the nearest recycling station.