The Team at Dunstan have a keen environmental conscience and would like to think that there is an easy solution to re-purposing our Dunstan polylaminate bags.
Dunstan Polylaminate Bags
Recycling the Dunstan polylaminate bags – we keep in contact with our bag supplier on a regular basis as there will be, soon we believe, some innovation which will enable these bags to bio-degrade after use.They will, however, bio-degrade quite quickly now – but only in the presence of UV sunlight and oxygen – which of course aren’t present on landfills! So, if the bags are used for instance as weed matting, they will degrade and break down quickly.
Check out our Dunstan Facebook and Instagram pages - you will see that a lady has made shopping bags from our empty bags – imagine if all Dunstan bags were converted to shopping bags – they would last for years and there would be no need for the present carnage caused by all the one way bags used in the supermarkets now!!
With the quality standards Dunstan needs to maintain, we cannot accept empty bags back to re-use as we could not rely on all returned bags being clean and rubbish free – there would simply be too much hygiene and brand damage risk involved for us.
We are launching a competition on social media to seek ideas from everyone (maybe through Schools also – as most Schools these days are teaching children about environmental responsibility and sustainability) as to innovative ideas on how best to re-use/recycle Dunstan bags.
Dunstan Grain Kegs
Dunstan introduced the Grain Keg concept a number of years ago, and since then, we would have saved many hundreds of thousands of bags from the landfill. This initiative was driven mainly from an environmental viewpoint, although the Kegs also provide other benefits such as saving the product from rodent /rain damage, and an OSH benefits from not lifting a whole lot of bags.However, the Kegs (which hold close to 1000 kg) are only logistically viable for large Dunstan users (2-3 tonnes / week plus users – the large Studs/Breeders/Racing Stables) which are located in “clusters” so that our Carrier can pick up empty Kegs/drop off full Kegs within a close proximity.
Dunstan owns the Kegs – they are a swappable bulk delivery concept.
So, unfortunately, it is not viable to offer the Keg concept to smaller users in more remote locations from our plants in the Waikato.