In-depth Inspections Vital When Buying Plastic

Our suppliers and our customers are equally important to us, so it falls to us to protect both parties as well as ourselves when buying plastic for recycling. This is why at Let’s Recycle It LTD we take such care when carrying out our in-depth quality inspections. We have dedicated staff covering Ireland and the UK to ensure the quality of every load of plastic we buy and sell; we as a company take this very seriously to protect the wider waste community.

Buying Plastic

If the quality of a particular material is not up to standard, then all parties involved are at risk of losing out financially and having their reputation suffer. If not immediately detected, it can also cause issues with the machinery used in the recycling process. This is why inspections are so important, and why we insist on carrying out photographic inspections, physical quality inspections and loading inspections.

Buying plastic often involves getting down and dirty, splitting bales open to see what is inside – women in waste, we can do it too! We can risk testing the patience of our suppliers if we keep asking for bales to be split, but in the long run this is the best way of ensuring the quality we offer our buyers is the same as the quality they’re receiving. We check for contaminants, smells, moisture, food residue, stones, dirt and more, as impurities such as these can downgrade the quality of the materials we purchase

Site Audit

Conducting a site audit is carrying out a full analysis of all the waste streams on a suppliers site. We will go in and identify each material type, we will advise the best route to take the material back to market and we will advise our client on the current market value of each of their waste streams. We also advise on how materials should be packaged and give any other tips to the supplier to help them add value to their waste. We offer this support to our suppliers as it will increase the amount they can get paid for their waste, while also increasing the profits that our end users are able to make when processing the material.

Inspections also help us to ensure we are keeping within weight guidelines when buying plastic for the movement of goods by road and sea. Our main objective is to ensure that everyone is happy with the deal; the supplier is happy with the price they get and the end user is happy with the material and does not feel they need to make a claim against the quality. This is why we’ll check for things such as fillers and additives in bales of rigids or for pieces of barriers in bales of soft films – to increase client satisfaction and to further develop a trusting professional relationship.

We even attend the loadings of materials we purchase to carry out loading inspections; being there in person helps to guarantee what we are sending to our end users is what we promised them, avoiding any disappointment on their end. If any of the material being loaded is of a lower quality than what was agreed, then being there in person to catch it and raise it directly with the supplier is always a much easier process than having to find out through an angry email or phone call to then have to deal with the matter remotely.

Waste Industry

Working in the waste industry means there will always be surprises – when buying plastic, it simply comes with the territory. It is what makes this such an exciting industry to work in. However, not withstanding the nature of this industry, we still go to great lengths to minimise the risks involved for all of our clients on both the supply-side and with our outlets. Quality inspections are a key element in ensuring every deal we do goes through smoothly to keep client satisfaction high and to keep the waste coming our way.