28 January 2021

The simple is not always so simple

The material is perhaps the most obvious to work with to increase durability. It is complicated, especially when making products that largely consist of plastic, which is a fossil-based material. There are really only three different possible paths to take if you want to change, and none is easy:

  1. The easiest thing would have been to replace plastic with completely plant-based materials. That would be the best thing and there is a lot of research on this, but in the present there are no real solutions that work. When the day comes when it becomes a reality, it is a big step in the right direction, because today’s plastic consists of fossil materials and has a very long decomposition time.
  2. Use compostable plastic. The problem is that the alternative plastics that don’t consist of oil and can be composted (for example plastics based on lactic acid or starch) so far have a limited area of ​​use such as thin plastic bags. There are also so-called biodegradable plastics, but they require industrial composting to decompose – and do not decompose completely in nature. It takes a very long time, during which they are debris, and end up as so-called microplastics – and we do not yet fully know how they affect the earth’s organisms. In addition, recycling is a problem as these plastics cannot be mixed with ordinary oil-based plastics.
  3. Working with recyclable plastic is a way of not increasing the total amount of plastic that already exists in society. The more we can reuse, the less fossil raw materials are required.

Recycled plastic is not completely self-evident

For our products, the only realistic alternative today is to work with recyclable plastic. Our products are injection molded today at our partner Talent in Estonia, and it has proved more difficult than we thought to get access to the quantities and right quality of recycled plastic required.

We are looking for a better solution

Today, we work to try to gain access to material flows from recycled plastic, while we make sure that all parts that are not used, and all products that are returned are ground down and become new Mousetrappers. I wish we had come further, but that’s the reality. The question is central to us and I promise that as soon as it becomes possible to find a sustainable material, no one is happier than me to try it! As long as we try to change as quickly as possible to completely use recycled plastic.

“Today, more and more people want to work with recycled plastic, which is fantastic. At the same time, we see that the need to create better solutions so that plastic is recycled correctly must be simplified, for both consumers and industry, ”says Roomet Soome, CEO of Talent Plastics.

Anders Ehnbom, CEO

Do you want to know more about our sustainability work, or have questions? Do not hesitate to contact me. I can not answer everything but I can answer as best I can. You can reach me at anders.ehnbom@mousetrapper.com, +46 76 949 70 44.