Nylex Recycled Products

Nylex is shaking up the gardening industry by changing the way people water their gardens.

Here at Nylex, we want the right choice for gardening watering accessories to be just as easy as watering the garden. We hope to inspire and drive a sustainable water future and our biggest step towards this is our Recycled Range. 

The plastic used in Nylex’s Recycled range is made from 30%-80% recycled material, the first of its kind here in Australasia. Throughout the manufacturing process of our products, we are able to collect offcuts as a bi-product of our production. Combined with a small amount of virgin material, this ensures that quality and performance of our product is maintained.

We proudly support the use of recycled products to encourage a new life for plastic waste that would have instead gone to landfill. Traditional watering hoses and watering tools are made from new plastic. All products in the Recycled range have been tested to perform to Nylex’s strict quality standards.

Alongside our ambitions to increase recycled products, we have also incorporated 100% recycled cardboard fibre in our packaging. All Nylex packaging also now includes icons which advise how to appropriately recycle and dispose.

Our products have always focused on being innovative and water wise, but it is bigger than that. We partner with only ethical manufacturers around the world and although our Recycled range is narrow now, it is a massive step forward in the right direction and we are exploring more ways to reduce waste across the board.

The Materials

The plastic we use in the Recycled range is waste created the production process. By using waste from this process, we save countless tonnes being sent to landfill,that would never (or very slowly) decompose.

Our commitment to sustainability extends to our packaging which is made from post-consumer recycled material. All packaging is suitable for recycling. We ship low waste and plastic free, reusing boxes and packing materials where we can or Forest Stewardship Council certified shipping envelopes that are 100% recyclable. 

The Process

By simply changing from virgin material to waste material generated from the production process, we’re using a waste that we have excess of. At the manufacturing plant, machines wash and crush plastic waste that comes from the manufacturing process of Nylex products leaving nothing but small plastic flakes. The flakes are heated, dried, and cooled, then cut into small resin pellets. Each product in the Recycled range is made from 30-%-80% of this plastic waste.

The Performance

The Recycled range has undergone significant research and development, and testing prior to being released. Although the products are made from recycled plastic, they meet the same performance and quality standards of all Nylex products.  

The Makers

Our primary manufacturer for Recycled range is in Yuyao, in the Zhejiang province of China. A small manufacturing site with strict but fair working conditions, no underage labour, wages are above minimum and leave is paid. There are several reasons why manufacturing our products in China makes sense.

1. Better quality control – Manufacturing in China is a huge, competitive industry, which means Nylex can demand the highest standards of quality in the creation of our products.

1. Greater speed and efficiency – China is our choice for manufacturing because their experience producing large volumes of products ensures we can meet customer demand in a timely fashion. Utilising China’s manufacturing industry means that large orders, strict deadlines, fast turnaround and priority shipping come as standard.

1. Cutting edge technologies – China is the world’s manufacturing hub, which puts them at the cutting edge when it comes to manufacturing technologies. Why ‘reinvent the wheel’ or try to purchase extremely expensive printing tools if we can pay the experts, who already use this equipment every day. This ensures more of our profits stay local, allowing us to offer employment and be able to donate materials to a variety of local and national support services.

1. Cost benefits – We won’t deny it, it is cheaper to manufacture in China than Australia. However we do not support ‘cheap and nasty’ manufacturing. We pay a higher than average rate for our production to ensure we use good factories that make high quality products.

The people and factories we work with are carefully selected by Nylex and meet strict international manufacturing and human rights criteria. Many factors are taken into consideration when we decide to take on new suppliers or manufacturers. Some of these factors are:

• Their commitment to environmental issues
• Their commitment to their employees  
• Their work with sustainable materials  
• Geographical location and economics
• Pass all internationally approved standards in both social and environmental audits. The international standards for the environmental audits are ISO 14001 and for social responsibility it is SA8000
• ISO 14001 specifies the requirements for an environmental management system that an organisation can use to enhance its environmental performance
• SA8000 is an international certification standard that encourages organisations to develop, maintain and apply socially acceptable practices in the workplace and deals with issues such as worker conditions and pay

We update our audits on a regular basis to ensure that our manufacturing partners are in compliance and if required, improve upon their last audit. We also visit with each of our suppliers regularly to ensure that our ‘responsibly-made’ principles are being upheld. It is this attention to detail that we hope will give you confidence that any Nylex product you purchase has been sourced with both ethical production and the sustainable support of the environment in mind.