Green Movement | Green Statement | GREENGUARD® Certified Products
SICO EUROPE® LTD.Green Statement
Environmentally Friendly Product Solutions
SICO® was incorporated in America in 1951 and has continued with its commitment since then as a premier manufacturer of mobile, folding products for the hospitality, leisure and education markets. SICO EUROPE’s® mission has always included the pursuit of sustainable solutions.
In itself, offering the highest quality, longest lasting products makes SICO EUROPE® more environmentally friendly. Because SICO EUROPE’s® product components are significantly higher quality, the useful life cycles of our products are considerably longer than our competitors’. That can mean less material usage, salvage, waste, landfill consumption, disposal costs, freight costs, downtime, and repair costs.
As a company, SICO EUROPE® is working hard to bridge the gap between supplying sustainable, earth friendly product solutions and constructing products that are built to stand the test of time. We are committed to providing customers around the globe with quality products that have a proven track record as a sound investment. We are always researching new sustainable materials for use in our products.
Environmentally Friendly Materials:
- Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) top core material is manufactured from materials under the SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) or Canadian Standards Association Standards. The MDF/poly top blanks supplied to SICO EUROPE® feature a substantial amount of recycled/recovered material in their construction. Over 99% of the materials used to produce the top blanks are recycled/recovered. The Composite Panel Association certifies its North American particle board and MDF panels as Environmentally Preferable Products (EPP). They are certified to have met the following criteria: Contains 100% Recycled/Recovered Wood Content. They also conform to ANSI A208.1 (PB) or A208.2 (MDF) Formaldehyde Emission Requirements.
- Corrugated packaging and inner-packaging constructed of recycled paper products. The recycled fibre content used in the paper making process contains 70% total recycled fibre content, with the remaining 30% being post-consumer (or comparable) fibre. Post consumer is defined as fibre derived from recovered paper which has been printed and/or contains inks or colored dyes.
- Recyclable and re-usable containers and pallets.
- A major program of inter-company material shipments has been converted from single-use paper/wood packaging to permanent, reusable, collapsible containers to reduce scrap, waste, transportation, fuel consumption, etc.
- Wood waste sawdust generated in manufacturing is recycled and used for animal bedding.
- Materials used may include recycled paper, recycled plastic, recycled content aluminum, recycled steel, and recycled wood, other recycled metals, and recycled powder paint.
- Manufactured laminated products utilise water-based adhesives. Adhesives are formaldehyde free.
- Resins and coatings will not outgas any harmful VOC's.
- Powder coating is an environmentally friendly method of applying a finish that virtually eliminates over spray and provides a non-toxic surface that emits no formaldehyde or VOC's.
Environmentally Friendly Manufacturing Processes:
- Metal scrap generated in manufacturing operations is recycled.
- Material handling equipment has been converted from liquid propane gas internal combustion engines to zero emission electric units.
- Plant machinery requiring liquid coolant utilises water-based materials with closed loop systems.
- Solvents are re-filtered and re-cycled.
- SICO EUROPE® is converting plant lighting to high efficiency, energy conserving lamps.
- Virtually 100% of SICO Europe’s painted components are finished with powder coatings utilising closed system recycling systems, with recaptured powders reused rather than becoming waste. Pre-cleaning liquids are recycled to the maximum extent possible, and treated prior to disposal.
- All plating is done in state of the art systems. Rinse waters are reused extensively, with water discharge reduced by 50% within the last five years.
- The system is a national Beta site for solution purification used on RoHS compliant Non-hex passivates used on zinc parts. This dramatically reduces frequency of replacement of rinse bath materials, extending tank life.
- Zinc and clear plated parts are 100% finished using a trivalent conversion coating, giving superior corrosion protection.
- SICO EUROPE’s® chrome plated finish is completely lacking any hexavalent chromium, thereby complying with the European Directive restricting the use of hex chromium (the RoHS Directive---even though this particular directive does not apply to our type of manufactured goods, yet).
- SICO EUROPE’s® chrome plater has been able to reduce the amount of chromium released to the environment by approximately 660 pounds per year.
- SICO EUROPE’s® chrome plater has given a presentation at the National Environmental Partnership Summit 2007 highlighting this Pollution Prevention (P2) accomplishment.
- All metals are recycled and reclaimed from plating filter and returned to economic use in manufacturing. Iron, Nickel, and chromium are removed to make stainless steel. Copper is refined to make copper and brass products. Zinc is removed to make zinc die-castings.
- The final discharge water from the process is virtually returned to its original state of purity.
- Incoming packaging from production materials are recycled to the greatest extent possible.
In addition:
- SICO EUROPE® is undergoing a significant conversion from printed materials and record retention to an electronic retention system. This allows access to information and files without printed material, file cartons, transportation, and minimisation of paper and metal file storage requirements.
- We are working towards printing all documents on recycled-content paper.
- Brochures are printed using soy-based inks.
- SICO EUROPE’s® internal office support staff is committed to recycling waste papers, aluminum, plastic and steel.
- Significant percentages of previously printed literature have been eliminated and replaced with a comprehensive web site that allows customers access to all product instructions, literature, parts lists, etc, without the need for printed, packaged material.
Summary:
SICO EUROPE® will continue to invest in research and development of durable new materials that are made of renewable and recyclable resources. Our manufacturing processes also reflect attention to minimizing waste, and re-cycling by-products of production.
