Plymouth-based Manuplas – an Advanced Insulation company specialising in the design, engineering and manufacture of floatation and buoyancy solutions for the marine and offshore sectors – has invested in an in-house recycling project that has seen the company reduce its impact on the environment by recycling an impressive 38-tonnes of lightweight Polyethylene Foam and Expanded Polystyrene Foam. 

 

With densities ranging from 0.02 – 0.18 g/cc as delivered, the foam-based material used by Manuplas for its surface-based marine solutions is between 5 and 50 times lighter than water. The material is purchased by the company in sheets or rolls, with multiple layers being thermo-laminated and rolled to create a lightweight but solid looking cylinder. These cylinders are produced in numerous sizes and used as fender systems for small boats or yachts, or the large floating structures seen in docks and shipyards. 

 

This thermo-laminating process creates an, uneven edge to the cylinders so Manuplas over sizes the diameter and length of each section, which is then profiled to the correct specification and formed to create domed or chamfered edges. This creates a substantial amount of high value foam offcuts that were of little use to the company because they couldn’t be melted down and reprocessed or recycled. 

 

As Manuplas research and development manager David Hamnett explains: “The grade of foam used is not recyclable by traditional methods so, with financial support from Business Link, we started investigated alternative recycling options. We also began looking for organisations that could put the recycled material to good use and discovered opportunities at Paignton Zoo Environmental Park. 

 

Following its research, Manuplas purchased a compactor to reduce the volume of discarded foam going to landfill and has, since recycling operations began in 2011, completely eliminated this particular waste stream, which equated to approximately 75% of the company’s total waste volume. It also reduced the associated high transportation and disposal fees that were costing the company nearly £10,000 a year. 

 

Used in the manufacture of products for the marine, offshore oil & gas, renewables and leisure industries, Manuplas successfully recycled approximately 2,000 cubic metres of lightweight foam between January 2012 and March 2014. The recycling process shreds the large foam offcuts into smaller manageable pieces that are then fed into a closed chamber where, using high-pressure compactors, air content from the foam cells is removed. This results in foam that, instead of its original 0.03g per cubic centimetre density, has a density (0.8g per cubic centimetre) similar to that of timber. Once the compaction process is complete, the processed 300 millimetre square extrusions are cut into one-metre lengths and palletised. 

 

At this point Manuplas could have just sent the compacted product to landfill. However, being environmentally conscious and keen to avoid this, they decided to find a solution that meant the material was, at the very least, recyclable or useful to someone else. So they contacted local organisations to ask if the compacted foam extrusions or logs (which do not rot and require no on-going treatment) would be useful. 

 

“Happily, having received positive responses from Paignton Zoo Environmental Park, Manuplas subsequently donated a significant number of the compacted logs for landscaping and animal enclosure projects!” reports David.

 

As Paignton Zoo Environmental Park’s environmental officer Peter Morgan explains, the organisation regularly purchases wooden sleepers for landscaping and light construction projects but, with the old stock of railway sleepers rapidly depleting and hard to come by, they were purchasing stock manufactured from newly felled timber. 

 

“While all timber used at the Zoo comes from FSC-certified suppliers, the fact that trees are still being felled to produce the sleepers didn’t fit with the organisation’s ecological or ethical objectives. However, being members of NISP we were made aware of what Manuplas was doing at a sustainability workshop and, having been invited to witness their recycling project and view the resulting product, its Eco Posts proved ideal replacements for our landscaping projects.”

 

NISP is the world's first National Industrial Symbiosis Programme and provides a platform to encourage businesses to implement resource optimisation and efficiency programmes that remanufacture or retain materials and other resources in productive use for longer through ‘industrial symbiosis’. 

 

As Paignton Zoo counts down to its 100th birthday, they have a programme of events planned and decided to redevelop an old zoo building and landscape the areas surrounding the soft play and education centres in what has become its Urban Zone. The zoo’s curator of plants and gardens studied the use of recycled materials for landscaping and, using the foam Eco Posts, subsequently created curved, undulating borders and retaining walls at the entrance to the Urban Zone and what became Investigate, a new exhibit housing a display of bugs, scorpions and spiders, which coincided with Paignton Zoo’s Year of the Invertebrate. 

 

Summarising for Paignton Zoo Environmental Park, Peter Morgan says that the effect the Eco Posts has created at its Investigate exhibit is unique, couldn’t be matched using timber sleepers and, thanks to Manuplas’ kind donation, has saved the charity significant amounts of money that can be put to good use elsewhere. 

 

The donations have saved both organisations a considerable sum of money and, instead of the mundane appearance of the previously used traditional timber structures, the Manuplas logs have created a visually striking look that is more in keeping with the Zoos’ natural environments. What’s more, the 38 tonnes of foam waste recycled since Manuplas started the process is equivalent to the weight of more than ten of Paignton Zoo’s female African elephant, Duchess!

 

For further information on its foam products for marine applications or the foam recycling project, call Manuplas on +44 (0)1752 771740, email sales@manuplas.co.uk or visit www.manuplas.co.uk.