Environmental Impact & Recycling

Raw Materials

All of Proptek’s products are made from reprocessed black copolymer polypropylene, except in very exceptional circumstances. Very occasionally we do need to use “virgin” material for when we have to make a white tray for a customer, but this is also a copolymer polypropylene material.

All the material we use – whether originally reprocessed or not – is quite capable of being reprocessed again at the end of its life as long as it is not too dirty or too deteriorated.  Proptek has historically bought back a lot of product from customers where they are broken or finished their useful life and has been reprocessing its containers for 20 years.

The recycling number for polypropylene is 5.

Fewer Chemicals in Use

Because our trays and containers feature a tough and solid, smooth surface, they are easier to clean and sterilize. This means that the only thing you need is steam, rather than chemicals that are potentially harmful to the environment.

As the roots created in our containers are created naturally using air pruning, no harmful root pruning chemicals like copper treatments need to be used.

Transport & Shipping

We do our very best to ensure our production facilities are located in key horticultural geographic locations. This ensures our trays and containers spend the least amount of time on the road as possible. This not only helps to lower our carbon footprint, but helps keeps delivery costs to our customers down too.

Super Long Life Products

Because our products are injection molded rather than thermo-formed or made from Styrofoam (EPS), they last much, much longer. This means less raw materials used over a 10 year life cycle and much less gets thrown away. You can find out more about the differences between Styrofoam and Plastic here.

Recycling Your Old Trays

Have your trays finally come to the end of their working life? We have a recycling service where we can take your old trays. We give you the scrap value of them, which can then be offset against the price of any new trays. Please contact us for more information and to organise a pickup.