Restore, Renew, Re-use, Recycle
Nikwax® was excited to announce its latest plans to help do more to protect the natural outdoor world at the recent ISPO trade show, which took place in Munich in February. ISPO is a leading trade fair within the sports sector, with over 2,800 exhibitors presenting from all different sectors, such as snow sports, health & fitness, urban, water sports and more.
Read on to learn about Nikwax’s new commitment on recycled plastics, as announced at ISPO.
Nikwax is the international market leader for waterproofing aftercare for Outdoor People. Since the origin of the company in 1977, Nikwax has often addressed and publicised environmental issues well before other companies.
Nikwax has never used aerosols, avoided using CFCs which damage the Ozone layer, and was the first aftercare company to have a fully water-based, solvent-free, waterproofing aftercare range. Nikwax Waterproofing has never used PFCs and has educated the public about their associated dangers. Nikwax is also the only Outdoor company to have fully balanced out its historical operational carbon emissions by restoring forest in Ecuador.
However, Nikwax delivers its products in plastic containers.
Plastic Pollution is a major problem
Plastic is a huge problem in the natural environment, and especially for our seas and rivers. Whilst plastic is an extremely useful material that has saved many lives by providing cheap hygienic packaging and multiple useful objects, its misuse is a major menace. Publicity about the scale of the problem has been increasing as we see images of mountains of plastic rubbish on beaches and floating islands of plastic in the Pacific. There is no doubt that plastic is contributing to the destruction of many sea creatures, and may be entering our food chain.
To exclude plastic from nature we can encourage a market for recycled plastic
The Nikwax goal is to take plastic out of the natural environment and reduce waste. Nikwax delivers waterproofing aftercare product to consumers reliably in plastic bottles. That allows outdoor people to restore and continue to re-use garments that would otherwise be thrown away. But we must make sure that plastic use is kept to a minimum and that it is not allowed to escape. How can we do that?
- Reduce the amount of plastic required for packaging
- Make it easier to recycle plastics by avoiding mixing different kinds of plastic in one item
- Use recyclable plastic
- Use recycled plastic
“We are all horrified by the images that we see on our news feeds of plastic pollution. It is abhorrent to visit a wild space and find it polluted with unnatural waste,” said Nick Brown, founder of Nikwax. He added, “Plastic pollution is one of the problems we CAN solve through raising awareness, recycling, using new technology and improving regulation. We hope to contribute to ultimately eliminating the problem without contributing further to climate change.”
Conclusion
Nikwax bottles have always been made of recyclable plastic, but by committing in future to making bottles from recycled plastic we are creating a market for recycled material. This is a useful solution whilst we look into the relative benefits of using bio-degradable packaging, which might be relatively energy inefficient by comparison.
It will be a progressive process, but the goal is that by mid- 2019, 85 per cent of Nikwax bottle plastic will be recycled, and by the end of 2020, 100 per cent.