One of the biggest selling points of our Zone Guardian device is the hundreds of litres of water saved for each quarterly flow switch test carried out (because the water used for testing is recirculated, and not sent to drain as is the case for older-style flow switch testing devices).
However, to protect the product from factory though to installation, there is no option but to use packaging; and a high-value heavy product such as ZG does require high-specification packaging simply because the cost of having a damaged product arrive on site is higher. The SEP Zone Guardian is one of our biggest volume products, so we have been looking for some time at environmentally-improved ways of presenting and packing.
Our first steps taken over a year ago, which were more subtle, were to reduce the size of all cartons (except the 6”/200mm) and minimise the size of the protective Stratocell pieces used inside. These actions reduced weight slightly, made handling easier, and allow more units to fit one a pallet without affecting protection. This action reduced the volume of all cartons up to and including the most popular 4”/100mm by a significant 25%.
Secondly, is the eradication of yellow pipe caps, which are effectively single-use plastics which no-one wants to see. Although we are using up our remaining stock of lower-volume sizes, we have not purchased any for over 12 months and will not be doing so again. Many customers and installers will already have noticed their absence, and because of the other packaging we use then the pipe-ends are still fully protected.
Our next line of attack is to move away from Stratocell which – whilst significantly better than polystyrene, is reusable and recyclable (although we’re not sure how much of it is actually recycled) – is still a chemical product. We are currently developing and testing alternative approaches and will report back shortly. Once we have a result we are happy with, we will be considering which other products our learning can be applied to.
Email us here to ask about Zone Guardian or our efforts to minimise our environmental footprint.