‘We’re All Responsible For Making Our World A Better Place To Live In.’

As we celebrate our 30th birthday and look back at a wonderful 30 years in the business, I’m filled with a huge sense of pride in our achievements.

Our groundbreaking new product launches this year, coupled with some stunning sustainability accomplishments, have truly made us trailblazers in the plastic packaging space. Now, it’s time to look to the future and continue the pioneering work we have already begun as your next-gen packaging supplier, to find truly innovative and sustainable plastic packaging solutions.

For all the bad press it commonly receives, plastics remain the most cost effective and least environmentally damaging packaging products out there.

The challenges posed by using alternative options to plastics are proving difficult to overcome. Time and time again, we see that materials such as paper, glass and aluminium are extremely expensive to recycle and in many cases, contaminate existing recycling processes.

Take paper as an example. If all the packaging on your supermarket shelves was made from paper, it would mean a lot of trees would have to be cut down to keep up with demand. This is neither environmentally friendly, cost effective nor sustainable over a long period. And plastic alternatives – such as plastic made from sugar cane – aren’t working either because they aren’t fully recyclable and can contaminate the recycling process.
The way forward, I believe, is to work together – and that means government, manufacturers, suppliers, retailers and consumers – to make sure that plastic packaging solutions are as sustainable as possible and that our sorting and recycling processes really work.

Manufacturers need to put plastic packaging products on the market that are both recyclable and contain recycled content. Retailers need to ensure they’re buying sustainable products and consumers need to ensure that they’re buying sustainably packaged products as well as recycling effectively at home.

As for the Government, why not have a Minister For Recycling who can formulate policy and a central government plan to make recycling processes more consistent throughout the country and improve our sorting and recycling infrastructure as a whole? Currently, each council in England and Wales has different recycling processes, which makes it difficult for both businesses and consumers to know if they’re recycling appropriately and effectively.

To achieve truly sustainable plastic packaging solutions, we also need far more investment, not just in the products themselves, but in sorting and recycling infrastructure. I believe what we really need is an incentivised approach to get manufacturers, retailers and consumers to fully engage in the recycling process.

Perhaps a scheme such as in Germany, where shoppers pay a deposit when they buy a bottle of cola for example, and then get that money back when they return it? Or a scheme where consumers receive a token every time they return plastic packaging products and build up credit to receive a free product or money back?

At Cambrian, our products – and the customers who buy them – are at the heart of everything we do, and we believe it’s our responsibility to work with our trusted partners to source and supply brilliant sustainable products that work exceptionally and are cost effective.
Our recently launched Minerva trigger head – available only through Cambrian – is truly an unparalleled product. Its chemical compatibility and spray pattern functionality are groundbreaking and the fact it can be recycled by standard kerbside services makes it unique among triggers.

Our continuing transition to the use of NIR (near infrared) black plastic is another example of our commitment to sustainable packaging. NIR Black is a gamechanger in the world of recycling because it allows previously unrecyclable carbon black packaging products to be picked out by an infrared scanner and recycled.

In conclusion, there needs to be far more effort at all levels of business and society to make more products more recyclable and improve recycling facilities to ensure a closed loop. In the end, it’s the responsibility of all of us to look after our planet and make our world a better place to live in.