Logistics Company Pargo Teams Up With Detpak To Develop Sustainable Paper Packaging
Logistics Company Pargo Teams Up With Detpak To Develop Sustainable Paper Packaging. Only 7% of South Africans recycle single-use plastic bags. What happens to the rest? A quick look outside will likely reveal them clinging to trees, lining streets, clogging drains and floating in the ocean. These are some of the questions that led to the creation of smart logistics company Pargo’s new paper mailing bags developed in partnership with South African packaging manufacturer, Detpak.
These paper mailing bags are designed to do the same job as their plastic counterparts, but they have a unique benefit — they disappear without a trace, bringing much needed environmental sustainability to the last-mile leg of deliveries in South Africa.
Carla Breytenbach, Marketing Manager at Detpak, explained to Business Tech that: “For us, creating products that have minimal impact on the environment goes beyond corporate responsibility, it’s our passion. That’s why Detpak’s focus is to provide packaging that is both environmentally friendly and fit-for-use. Our bags meet the EU standard EN13432 for compostability, which means they can even be added to your home compost bin where they will break down to nutrients that can be plunged back into your garden. This stands in sharp contrast to single-use plastics which typically take hundreds of years to fully decompose.”
Addressing this concern, Michaela Gabriel, Head of Marketing at Pargo, explained to Business Tech that: “We spent over a year developing our new paper mailing bags with Detpak to ensure that they are tough enough to withstand the strain of countrywide shipping. The result of this lengthy process is a mailing bag featuring the same wet strength as the paper used in the cement industry.”
“All Detpak’s paper is sourced from responsible forestry, meaning our suppliers have been audited for evidence of sustainable and ethical practice, for instance, their commercial crops are located in high rainfall areas to reduce the number of resources required for their upkeep. Importantly, this also means that the raw material we use is renewed at an equal rate to its consumption,” Carla Breytenbach added.
Michaela Gabriel continued to say, “It was of the utmost importance for us to collaborate with a local company like Detpak, who employs around 280 staff, to develop our new mailing bags. Keeping the production in South Africa further allows us to further reduce the carbon footprint of our deliveries and it also benefits the local economy.”
Pargo’s new paper mailing bags are available to their retail partners at no additional cost, making the decision to go green easier than ever before.
