Circular Economy
Paving the Path to a Zero Waste Future: Our Journey Towards Sustainability by 2025
In recent years, the global movement towards sustainability has gained momentum, and businesses around the world are recognizing the urgent need to address environmental concerns. At our company, we have set an ambitious goal to become a zero-waste business by 2025. This commitment reflects our dedication to environmental stewardship and a sustainable future. In this blog post, we will outline the steps we are taking to achieve our zero waste vision and the impact it will have on our business and the planet.
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Raising Awareness and Fostering a Culture of Sustainability: Becoming a zero-waste business requires a collective effort, starting with raising awareness among our employees and stakeholders. We are conducting training sessions, workshops, and awareness campaigns to educate our staff about the importance of waste reduction, recycling, and responsible consumption. By fostering a culture of sustainability, we aim to empower our employees to take ownership of waste management practices.
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Implementing Waste Reduction Strategies: To eliminate waste at its source, we are focusing on reducing our consumption and reevaluating our procurement processes. We are actively exploring ways to minimize packaging, encourage the use of reusable materials, and adopt sustainable alternatives. This includes working closely with our suppliers to find eco-friendly options and considering the entire lifecycle of the products we use.
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Recycling and Composting: While waste reduction is our primary focus, we also recognize the importance of proper waste management. We have implemented comprehensive recycling programs throughout our facilities, ensuring that all recyclable materials are separated and sent to appropriate recycling centres. Additionally, we are promoting composting initiatives to divert organic waste from landfills and create nutrient-rich soil for local community gardens or farms.
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Collaborating with Stakeholders: Achieving zero waste requires collaboration and engagement from our stakeholders, including customers, partners, and local communities. We actively seek partnerships with organizations that share our commitment to sustainability, allowing us to leverage shared resources, knowledge, and expertise. By involving our stakeholders, we can collectively find innovative solutions and magnify our impact.
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Tracking and Monitoring Progress: To measure our progress and identify areas for improvement, we have established robust tracking and monitoring systems. Regular audits are conducted to assess waste generation, diversion rates, and recycling efficiency. By analyzing this data, we can identify patterns, set targets, and implement necessary adjustments to our waste management strategies.
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Continuous Innovation and Improvement: Becoming a zero-waste business is an ongoing process that requires continuous innovation and improvement. We actively encourage our employees to share ideas and suggestions for waste reduction, and we celebrate innovative solutions. By fostering a culture of innovation, we can continuously optimize our operations and explore new technologies and practices that align with our sustainability goals.
The Impact of Our Journey: Working towards zero waste not only benefits the environment but also brings numerous advantages to our business. By reducing waste and optimizing our resource usage, we can lower operational costs, enhance our brand reputation, and attract environmentally conscious customers. Furthermore, our commitment to sustainability positions us as responsible corporate citizens, fostering goodwill within our communities and inspiring other businesses to follow suit.
Becoming a zero-waste business is a significant undertaking, but one that is essential for a sustainable future. By raising awareness, implementing waste reduction strategies, collaborating with stakeholders, and continuously monitoring our progress, we are confident in achieving our zero waste goal by 2025. Through these efforts, we are actively contributing to a greener, more sustainable world while setting an example for others to follow. Together, we can make a profound impact and pave the way towards a future with reduced waste and heightened environmental consciousness.
In our closed-loop ecosystem, every step counts towards achieving net zero emissions by 2030. We're passionate about leaving a positive imprint on the planet, and that's why our mats are made from recycled materials and why we've enacted our circular story now ( early). By giving new life to discarded plastic, we transform waste into something beautiful, practical, and oh-so-stylish!
But that's not all. Zero waste is our mantra, and we're here to inspire you to live by it too. Our mats are not only visually stunning but they're also designed to be easily repurposed or recycled when the time comes. We believe that sustainability should be a seamless part of our everyday lives, and with our mats, you can make a difference without sacrificing style.
So, whether you're decorating your home, sprucing up your office, or adding a touch of eco-chic to your outdoor space, Recycled Mats has got you covered. Let's walk the talk together and create a world where waste is a thing of the past. Join the circular revolution today, and let's build a future that's as vibrant and beautiful as our recycled mats!
Being a part of the solution instead of the problem
The concept of a circular economy is becoming increasingly popular in businesses and organizations around the world. In a circular economy, materials and energy used in production cycles are kept at their highest levels of utility and value, rather than discarded or wasted. The goal is to minimize the dependence on new resources while also reducing the environmental impact of human activity. At our company, we are committed to using this concept to transition to a circular economy business by 2025. To do this, we have identified a number of key steps we must take in order to create a successful transition.
1. Design for Circularity: The first step is to ensure that all manufacturing processes are designed with circularity in mind. This means working to find ways to reuse materials and reduce waste whenever possible. We will also need to design our products to be more durable, so they can be reused or easily recycled at the end of their life cycle.
2. Procurement: We must ensure that all materials, components, and products being used and purchased are from circular-based suppliers. This means ensuring that they are ethically and sustainably sourced from companies that minimize their own environmental impact.
3. Manufacturing and Distribution: The processes used to manufacture and distribute our products must be planned
Note from JJ Stranan, Founder of Recycled Mats 2009
Here at Recycled Mats, we're passionate about finding solutions. We've had the desire to create a circular economy for our main product line - our recycled plastic mats - for years now, and 2021 brought us one giant step closer to that goal.
When I originally founded the business, I was passionate about creating a product from waste plastic, a product that many companies were creating using virgin plastic. When I discovered that PET could be used, I put my hand up and said let's do this and to date, we've helped repurpose from landfill an estimated 350,000+ kg!
For a time this was fabulous and very satisfying, however as the years have gone by, I've wanted to go one better by being able to offer our customers the option to re-recycle their mats back to us so that we can create yet another new RPET product, both practical and earth-loving, thereby giving our recycled mats an even longer life. After all, nothing lasts forever but why not extend the lifespan of our mats as much as we can?
We often get asked if our mats are recyclable. In the past, we've had to acknowledge that "they can be, but it's up to your own local council", as some do and some don't. This has been far from an ideal solution which has led us on a quest to find an answer so that we can say "YES!"
We're excited that we have now purchased the machines needed to begin this next step of the process!
The first range of products that we are working on is surfboard fins made from recycled plastic!! Woohoo...we're so excited! Typically, with any new product development, we need to test out quite a few things to ensure that we can safely create a new, quality product that the market will appreciate. And when we do our final testing on our new surfboard fins, we'll update our community via EDM and socials to get the word out that we have successfully turned them into practical, affordable, Australian-made, re-recycled products!
UPDATE JUNE 2024…. Currently on hold until further notice
Thanks so much for the support. Unfortunately, we have put our bottle top recycling on hold until further notice as we are in the process of moving warehouses.
UPDATE APRIL 2023…. How can I get involved?
If you have an unwanted / damaged mat you’ve been unable to re-home or donate and you’d like us to recycle it, please drop us an email in the first instance, complete with photos, to supertroopers@recycledmats.com.au. We can then check it meets the re-recycling criteria.
Our product testing is always evolving, so what are we looking for in your old mat?……..
- Is it CLEAN & completely free from dirt? If dirt enters the recycling process, it can taint the entire batch of plastic, rendering it unusable and completely defeating the purpose. We don’t have the facilities or space to clean and dry mats prior to beginning the process, so we need you to help us to help the planet!
- Is the plastic still in GOOD SHAPE? Sadly, deteriorating or flaking plastic will not survive our granulation process during re-recycling as the integrity of the plastic has been reduced, and therefore cannot be made into another product. An accidental tear or cut, or other unintentional damage you may have caused to your otherwise awesome mat is fine, but the plastic must still be in good condition.
Once you have the thumbs up from our friendly team, please drop them off during office hours (M-F, 9-5), or send them to RECYCLED MATS, Unit 2, 42 Machinery Drive, Tweed Heads South, NSW 2486 with a note on the package saying "FOR RECYCLING” Thank you!
Bottle Tops & Soy Sauce Fish pods
**JUNE 2024 UPDATE - ON HOLD AT PRESENT DUE TO MOVING WAREHOUSES**
Watch out Tweed we are on a mission to find a new home for your clean and label-free bottle tops. There are many amazing colours to make new products from with bottle tops, blue, red, yellow, white and even gold! Simply bring your clean and colour-sorted bottle tops to Unit 2, 42 Machinery Drive, Tweed Heads South, NSW 2486 between the hours of 9-5 Monday - Friday and we will granulate them and remake them into something new, keep an eye on our website and shopfront to see what we make, but our first new product is surfboard fins or what we like to call "Reef Rescue Surf Fins", then flower pots, building block games with a new look and then hopefully onto veggie garden bed frames and maybe even bollards, tables and who knows what else - the world is our oyster. But first, we need your help. To help us, you can start by collecting (or getting your school or workplace involved) bottle tops, then cleaning/drying them and have them sent or dropped off to us, then BOOM we will do the rest.
If you are interested in spreading the word please email us at supertroopers@recycledmats.com.au and we can send you some marketing material to print out for cartons to show your community what we need, why and how to do it. Then we will do the rest! Help us help mother earth.
We are also starting to accept other non-standard items for recycling that we pass on to other amazing people working in this space. To find out more, check out this post "What we recycle"
As you know, we're also passionate about teaching the next generation, so the seeds of knowledge spread far and wide. If you're looking for some fun ways to teach primary-aged children all about the circular economy, please check out our inventive blog "Have fun teaching the circular economy!"
Thanks for being a part of the journey with us - we're always looking at ways we can do things better. If you have any ideas that may help us with the re-recycling concept, we would LOVE to hear from you!
Thank you. JJ Stranan, Founder of RM 2009
