Ashortwalk, well known for designing and manufacturing home and garden products made from recycled coffee cups, is launching their latest venture; a UK wide plant pot recycling scheme aimed at taking the 5 million plus redundant pots currently residing in our sheds and turning them back into new, useful products for the home and garden.
There isn't a keen gardener alive who doesn't want to do something about the growing mountain of old plant pots in the garden shed. This prompted the guys down at Ashortwalk to think of a solution to this frustrating dilemma.
The solution led them to create a full, closed-loop recycling process. The process involves the owners of numerous, space hogging plant pots, dropping their undesired pots off at their local garden centre.
From there, Ashortwalk will collect the pots and melt them down into malleable pellets before rejuvenating the once dull plant pot into new and innovative garden products.
“By turning old pots back into new products the ‘Pot to Product’ scheme offers people a rare chance to participate in a full, closed-loop recycling process, the recycling loop is only truly complete once you re-use that same material.” explains Dan, the founder of the company and an ex-Dyson designer. “That very same plant pot you recycled at your local garden centre last month is now back in the same store as a bird feeder, an outdoor clock or even a house sign.”
As each garden centre or nursery joins the free scheme they offer the range of garden products right next to the collection bins; ranging from patented plant hangers to ECO bird feeders geared towards using food waste that would otherwise end up in your bin.
The garden centre industry certainly sees the benefits of such a scheme, with prominent chains such as The Garden Centre Group (Wyevale) already helping to pioneer the scheme and take it UK wide. 'Pot to Product' recycling is also backed by RECOUP the UK's leading authority on plastics waste management.
Another major benefit of Ashortwalk’s’ closed-loop’ process is that the entire procedure; from collection, through to final manufacture stays within the UK. Consequently, the overall carbon footprint is far smaller than using virgin plastics.
He concludes: “The scheme will only be a success if we all get behind it, dig out our old pots from the shed and insist your local garden centre joins the free scheme. Those 5 million pots gathering dust could be helping to feed your garden birds over the winter”.
Ashortwalk specialises in designing, developing and manufacturing innovative products made in the UK from recycled materials.
Ten years ago, inventor Dan Dicker left Dyson to set up a company to make eco-products from re-cycled coffee cups. He called it ashortwalk – because he always wanted him and his family to work and live a short walk from the sea.
From the humble beginnings of a shed in the back garden and a few new product ideas the business has come a long way in 10 years. We now design, manufacture and supply a broad range of ECO products for such companies as: John Lewis, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Homebase, Crate and Barrel, as well as over 500 independent shops in the UK.
The key to staying competitive in the global market from a shed in Cornwall has always been to design and manufacture unique, functional products. We are no longer in a shed, but our philosophy is still the same............ and most importantly we are ashortwalk from the beach.... just!
For further information visit www.ashortwalk.com
Source: Wigwam PR
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