Fully recently decided to stop their sales of office materials in Europe. This meant that the warehouse in Ghent had to be emptied. They looked for a partner who could relieve them of their worries and ended up with RPB.
The result? The logistically complex project was successfully completed operationally & administratively. In addition, the removed materials have been given a maximum circular destination.
*B-Corp certified companies, in addition to profit, mainly focus on sustainable and social goals, on which they are audited every 3 years. In the BeNeLux there are >200 B-Corp companies, approximately 6000 worldwide, spread over 85 countries.
A project with logistical, administrative and sustainable challenges. How did that go?
A project like this requires collaboration between different parties. RPB has more than 140 partners who offer logistics, processing, reuse and technical solutions throughout Belgium. A selection was made based on the customer's wishes.
For this specific assignment, RPB could count on the services of Katoen Natie, Fully's permanent stock manager. They were ready every day to pick the right materials from the warehouse and load trailers.
In consultation with the reuse partners, RPB decided to load the trailers manually and therefore fill them optimally. This made it possible to stack higher and pallets did not take up unnecessary space. The result? An impressive reduction of no less than 40% in the number of transports.
After loading, it was the transporter's turn to transport the materials to 6 different customers, active in recycling & reuse. A tailor-made job for Transport Martens, with whom RPB has been working with satisfaction for several years. The following customers were selected by RPB based on its local presence (less transport & CO2e) and/or specialty (best circular solution).
Bruco Containers is a large-scale company that rents containers as well as handles waste processing and recycling. Additional staff were deployed for this project, with tasks ranging from manually unloading the trailers to emptying the trailers and manually unpacking the cardboard.
With the help of cranes, magnets and shredders, different material flows could be created and the materials could be placed on sorting lines. After this, the sorted raw materials were collected per type and, if necessary, placed back on the sorting line for further processing. In this way, Bruco has sorted 350 tons of material and prepared it for further processing and recycling.
MIREC Recycling NV is an organization that specializes in the ecological and efficient recycling of already used electrical and electronic products. These products contain many precious metals that are becoming increasingly scarce as raw materials. That is why MIREC ensured that the precious metals from the devices at Fully were recycled. In this way, these valuable raw materials can be used for the production of new products.
To recycle everything correctly, they used a lot of equipment, ranging from shredders to machines that apply separation techniques. This way it was guaranteed that the right material would reach the right end station. The (non-)ferrous flows and precious metals were delivered to the smelters to be recycled back into the same products, while the plastics were transported as granules to recognized processors. This was only possible because of a lot of people, both on and off the work floor, and the good cooperation with RPB.
Scrap is a non-profit organization that focuses on finding new uses for materials that would otherwise be lost, such as manufacturing and building materials. With three permanent employees and six volunteers, they were ready to help in this real undertaking. It was therefore a challenge to find a storage place for a total of 40 tons of material.
Thanks to Scrap, 1850 pieces of material will find a new home, both in reused and recycled form. They have already completed a first large purchase of 135 pieces from a contractor who will use them as window sills, skirting boards and wall coverings. Through their sister organization Recupcentrale, they will soon install 2 recovery kitchens where bamboo desktops will be used as work surfaces.”
Hou'tHart guides companies, organizations and individuals in building materials with reclaimed wood. They are located in the manufacturing factory in Hoboken, where they also shared the wood with other partners in this project. This way, transport costs and COXNUMX emissions could remain low.
All this collected wood will be turned into furniture, flooring, desktops and much more. These products in turn end up in schools, theaters and people's homes, to name just a few. The versatile use of this wood is also a major benefit for Hou'tHart itself, because by sharing all the materials, their network is becoming bigger and stronger.
Buurman vzw Antwerpen collects, processes and ensures the repurposing of waste and residual material. They not only sell materials, but they also offer workshops and workplaces in their studio in Antwerp. Due to the large amount of material they received, their biggest challenge was deciding which materials were suitable for reuse and which were not.
You can now find the suitable materials in their warehouse. There were great materials for private individuals, makers and designers. It was the first time that Buurman had accepted material on such a scale since their move to a larger hall, so the Buurman community can still make do with all those materials.
IMPACT Furniture, part of Oxfam Belgium, focuses on the reuse of high-quality office furniture with a social and environmental impact. They have been collecting furniture from large institutions and companies for twenty years.
The materials are given a second life through their Upcycling project, where, among other things, furniture items are made from discarded materials. The biggest challenge was finding storage capacity; because no fewer than 5.000 table tops were delivered to Impact Furniture. The project was carried out by three Oxfam team members who received and recycled the panels.
