Precycling

  Should recycling be scrapped?

As global concern over environmental issues grows, increasing legislative pressure continues to challenge both consumer and manufacturer to reduce waste - especially in regard to the billions of disposable plastic containers manufactured yearly worldwide. Until now the most politically correct method of dealing with disposable plastic containers was recycling. Although recycling is a move in the right direction, it involves some expensive and energy-wasting procedures that make its efficacy doubtful.

For example, consider the typical plastic trigger sprayer used for dispensing a window cleaning product. In order to be recycled when empty, it must be transported to a recycling center, picked up and transported to a recycling firm, sorted, ground into small particles, sold, transported to a plastics molder, buffered with 50% to 90% virgin material, then finally molded into a new product. This process does result in an overall reduction in waste and new plastic material; however, it also results in additional handling and transportation that inflates not only the price of the recycled plastic material, but also air pollution from fuel emissions. Add those obstacles to the reluctance of plastics manufacturers to work with low-integrity, contaminated regrind material, and one can see why, as far as recycling, plastics waste reduction has remained somewhat visionary.

  Precycling is the practical solution.

Conceptually, plastics recycling certainly is valid, but if it isn’t feasible, it will fail. Many believe the solution to be a new concept termed precycling that transforms plastics waste reduction from the visionary into the practical. Precycling shares the same vision as recycling, but as its name suggests, it aims to accomplish that vision by circumventing the bulk of the recycling process. Two key elements make precycling work: the use of concentrated liquid products and the use of high-longevity dispensers from which to dispense them. For instance, instead of purchasing and disposing of 21 complete trigger sprayers of regular window cleaner over a period of time, a household would purchase one trigger sprayer of concentrated window cleaner and three small cartridge refills to be diluted with water.

  New dual-liquid dispensers present new possibilities.

Of course, concentrates have had their drawbacks in the past; they can be messy to dilute, harsh to the skin, inconvenient to store, and manufacturers have avoided distributing them because they decrease the number of turns -- or number of their actual products sold. However, the newly developed dual-liquid trigger sprayer dispensers from Take 5 make concentrates safe and easy to use. Our high-quality VersiTech^® Sprayer utilizes small cartridge refills and dilutes the concentrate with water within the sprayhead itself, eliminating the inconvenience of mixing and storage. These small cartridge refills help manufacturers to realize a high number of turns and decrease freight costs and fuel emissions while reducing the amount of plastic needed by as much as 90%.

Precycling -- it benefits consumer, manufacturer and our environment!