Making 100% recycled plastic panels is really difficult in NZ, here's why:
1. Most plastics are automatically shipped to landfill because there is not a direct market for them. NZ predominately only recycle HDPE, LDPE, select PP and select ABS. That's only 4 out of 24 plastic types. To have to build our own supply chain.
2. Post collecting recycled plastics, we spend a lot of effort working with our partners to pre-process raw waste into the appropriate ingredients for production. This often involve a process of separatio, granulation and densifying high volume plastics.
3. Critical.'s factory is very much like a kitchen. Raw ingredients are then separated into batches by Cleanstone colourway. Our technicians pre-mix formulae for Cleanstone sometimes by hand.
4. We have to then carefully treat our moulds so Cleanstone gives the correct finish.
5. Our recycled plastic ingredients then undergo a software controlled production process that match the exact sequence of production steps to each individual Cleanstone colourway.
6. Each Cleanstone panel then comes out and enters a QA process where by our technicians/ material scientists records the quality data of each sheet and that datasheet is then used as training data to update the software and improving the production formula.
But most important of all the success of Critical. Cleanstone ultimately depends on how much our customer's love the product. The short answer is NZ is a relatively conservative market - slow to adopt new sustainable products.
In construction industry too often we like to stick to tried and true materials even though it's design to fail in 5-7 years time. Unfortunately too as a country we default back to the cheapest product on the market.
The other half and equally challenging side of trying to bring a game changing product into the market is about educating our customers ... which is why you see these videos everyday!
It's been a tough start to the year whānau, just needed a moment to vent!
That said, appreciate all the love and support you guys have all shown me over the years! Would appreciate it if you could drop me a follow here on linkedin and @critical.things on instagram!