Recycled rubber in NGI's production

NGI A/S

Sustainability Initiatives

As a part of NGI’s sustainability initiatives, we have been looking into our own waste products. One of our waste products is the surplus of vulcanized rubber from the molding process. When molding rubber there is a 10% surplus of rubber.

This accumulates to approx. 20 tons of waste rubber per year which is sent to an incineration plant.

We are currently testing if this waste material can be recycled in our own production of new machine feet. The vulcanized rubber is frozen and grinded to a fine powder which is mixed into the new rubber used for production.

We have now successfully constructed a foot made with 50% recycled rubber that complies to the same mechanical standards as the original machine foot. We are still looking into ways of improving the visual appearence of the foot with recycled rubber and whether it is possible to use the recycled rubber again and again.

Assuming that 60% can be used we will reduce the annual emmision by 60%.

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