BPI honoured with Scottish Green Award

Greenock based British Polythene Industries, Europes largest recycler of polythene film, was announced last night (30 Sept) as the winner of the Best Green Large Company category at the 2010 Scottish Green Awards ceremony.

The business was recognised for a host of green practices including the first ”fully closed loop” farm plastics recycling initiative, its use of a natural bio-filtration system which uses mussel shells to control VOC emissions and its efforts to place environmental concerns at the heart of its business activiti

This award category recognises the efforts of a large company in helping to improve the environment. The independent research for the awards and the judging process was undertaken by the David Livingstone Centre for Sustainability at the University of Strathclyde a centre of excellence for research on sustainability.

Every tonne of polythene of the 64,000 tonnes the BPI Group recycles each year saves 1.8 tonnes of oil and, when re-used in place of prime materials, prevents around 1.5 tonnes of CO² being released into the atmosphere. In addition to its recycling activities the Group continues to develop downgauged films to minimise the use of resources where appropriate to the application. Two such products Wrapsmartultra, a pallet stretchwrap and SilotitePro, a silage stretchfilm enable customers to use around 40%-50% less film by volume.

Over the last year BPI also made further strides towards the operation of greener sites with the implementation of ISO14001 on a further two of its sites and the rollout of a Zero Waste to Landfill strategy.

Speaking of the Award win, Andrew Green, the Groups Environmental Director said:  We are delighted that our work to improve the environment and environmental awareness has been recognised. Large scale environmental initiatives such as our closed loop recycling scheme are the more obvious face of our green efforts but this award also acknowledges the many other processes and practices we employ such as our sponsorship of the Starpack Awards scheme, our school visits programme or the production of environmental factsheets for our customers and employees. He continued: The Awards represents the work of the whole BPI team, across all our products and activities, towards providing a more sustainable environment.

• British Polythene Industries (BPI) is a leading European supplier of polythene film products.

• BPI is a global supplier of high performing agricultural and horticultural films to over 60 counties worldwide from manufacturing sites in the UK, Belgium and Canada.

• The BPI Group is a major supplier of packaging for the protection of food and other goods.

• BPI is the largest recycler of polythene film waste in Europe recycling over 64,000 tonnes of post-use polythene material from commercial, retail, industrial and agricultural markets.

• BPI’s products, which are marketed under well known and established brand names including Supreme (stretchwrap), Visqueen (construction films), Green Sack (recycled refuse sacks) and Silotite (silage stretch film), provide high performing, cost-effective polythene solutions across a range of industries.