Sustainability
Environmental issues are now the subject of greater community awareness than ever and Vinidex has long been mindful of these issues. At Vinidex, we take a pro-active approach to the environment and our responsibility to look after what we have for the sake of the future. Our long-life, durable products benefit society in their applications. Here are some of the other ways that Vinidex builds sustainability into our business.
Founding members of the Green Building Council of Australia
Vinidex have been members of the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) since it was established in 2002 to promote the adoption of green building practices. The GBCA operates the Green Star environmental rating system for building materials and construction. Early versions of Green Star tool encouraged substitution of alternative materials for PVC. However, since then, the GBCA has recognised the environmental improvements made by committed companies such as Vinidex and now, the use of responsibly-produced PVC pipe products is regarded favourably in the Green Star rating system. These PVC products are known as as Best Environmental Practice (BEP) PVC…..(read more)
Signatories to the Australian PVC industry’s Product Stewardship Program
PVC pipes are known for their durability and long-term performance. As with all manufactured products, there will be environmental impacts along the life cycle. PVC, in particular, has been well scrutinised, largely due to the attention focused on it by some green groups in the past.
In 2002, the Vinyl Council of Australia launched a voluntary product stewardship initiative to recognise and address all environmental issues facing the Australian PVC industry. The Product Stewardship Program sets out commitments to address these issues and time frames to meet them. Vinidex has been a signatory to the Program and the commitments since its inception….(read more)
Leaders in technical innovation and development of material efficient products
Regardless of the environmental credentials of a material, it is always better if you can use less of it. Vinidex has a proud history of developing material efficient products that use less raw material without sacrificing technical capability. Use of advanced materials and structured wall pipe principles bring many performance advantages as well as environmental benefits….(read more)
Recycling
As thermoplastics materials, PVC, polyethylene and polypropylene are well suited to recycling. Vinidex has been recycling all in-house produced scrap into pipe products for over thirty years. While the long life of our products means that there is limited supply of used pipe and fittings Vinidex also has experience with recycling post consumer waste and actively encourage the return rather than the disposal of all packaging materials. …(read more)
Investment in new equipment for energy efficiency
At Vinidex, we constantly invest in and develop new technology to improve our products and energy efficiency.
A new state of the art manufacturing facility has been built in Toowoomba to service the growing coal seam gas and mining industries. This facility has modern energy efficient processing equipment and a building design that minimises energy usage. The building was designed to allow as much natural lighting and ventilation as possible in the factory and office areas. It incorporates roof and wall sheeting with high solar reflectance to reduce the energy load and high efficiency LED lighting is used extensively throughout. The facility includes a Vinidex AquaPRO stormwater retention system that provides water to processing plant minimising the use of town water for production process. A new production process design has been implemented which minimises product handling and hence energy usage at each production stage. Overall the new Toowoomba pipe manufacturing facility is designed to minimise its environmental footprint.
Vinidex has replaced 40 of the older injection moulding machines with new, technologically superior units. With significantly decreased cycle times, the new machines use less energy to manufacture the same product volumes. Improved product quality and increased output consistency has resulted in significantly less waste.
Improvements in manufacturing and facilities
Vinidex is a major consumer of electricity and consumption of this energy resource is directly related to production output. We have actively sought ways to reduce our consumption of electricity without adversely affecting production or product quality. A number of key performance indicators such as energy consumed per tonne of product manufactured are used by Vinidex to continually monitor consumption in the production process and help us see where improvements can be made. In addition to our manufacturing process, upgrades at our facilities have reduced our energy consumption. Over the years, Vinidex has been the recipient of a variety of awards that recognise our efforts to reduce our environmental footprint.