Plastic Fantastic - A Closer Look at a ScanCom Core Material

ScanCom first started producing own plastic furniture almost 10 years ago. 

Since our own plastic factory was inaugurated in Vietnam, in , the material has become a core material in ScanCom's design offering, with multiple solutions to select from.

Plastic is - arguably - the perfect material option for outdoor furniture. The material is flexible, yet sturdy, maleable, hardwearing, long-lasting, weather-resistant, relatively light, and requires little-to-no maintenance, aside from the occasional clearning. Unsurprisingly, plastic is a mainstay in the industry, and is offered by a wide variety of producers; so what makes ScanCom's plastic material and plastic journey so special?

Virgin Beginnings

When we first started producing in plastic, we utilised only a high-quality grade of plastic adapted with our own unique formula. Thus, Duresin was born as ScanCom's first plastic material created for injection moulding. The material raw material is readily available in options with almost no colouration, making it easy to develop all kinds of colours, and with just the right flexibility that allowed for ScanCom to design pieces in accordance with a key decision in those early days - we create pieces 100% glass fibre free.

It has always been, and remains, a key focus for us that we want to ensure the highest degree of recyclability in our products, and not having glass fibre in our plastic designs is something we believe sets us apart.

Recycled Renaissance

In the early days of our plastic adventure, recycled plastic in high value and quality products was still in its infancy. This didn't stop us from pursuing an ambitious R&D programme with a target of creating a commercially viable, almost fully recycled plastic formula and chair design. This project resulted in the successful creation of two distinct material types: DuraOcean and DuraLand. Named for their raw material source (maritime and landfill recycled plastics, respectively), ScanCom was able to take a multi-pronged approach to the plastic pollution challenge, while divesifying the supply chain.

After the initial Success in -19, ScanCom added another plastic source to our portfolio through a partnership with Plastic Bank in : Social Plastic. Using only material collected from Indonesia, we were now able to also add a social aspect to our efforts for more ethical material sourcing and use.

With the three recycled, and current, plastic options on offer, ScanCom has a wide variety of opportunities for our customers to choose the right material, story, and impact, that they believe in; something that has also earned ScanCom several awards and accolades.

A notable and important element to raise is that our designs can be created with as much as 93% recycled plastic content - the remaining 7% being colour, and/or UV and strenght stabilisers. For our popular Cannes/Nassau design, this means that each chair contain up to 3,2kgs of recycled plastic material!

Furniture of the Future

With four options for plastic - three recycled and one virgin - available, and a high-tech plastic factory living up to ScanCom's standards for Operational Excellence, plastic designs remain a key product type for us, and our Design Team always push for new, stunning ways to use the fantastic plastic to create furniture pieces suited for current and future outdoor needs.

The renowned furniture manufacturer, particularly known for living room cabinets, supplies large retail chains in Poland and Western Europe. Until , the intralogistics department used wooden pallets, with which the furniture manufacturer was “extremely dissatisfied”. This type of material wears out quickly, is susceptible to breakage and repair, but above all: the nails in the pallets often damage the sensitive chipboard panels used in furniture production. At Craemer the manufacturer found the “perfect solution” – a pallet made of plastic.

The TC model (for “Totally Closed”), launched by Craemer about twelve years ago, is the only load carrier that remains undamaged all around, even under heavy use, as field tests have proven. The quality features – extreme impact resistance, solid wall thickness, patented welding geometry for the top and lower deck connection; high quality of workmanship, stable runner connection – were convincing. In mid-, the Polish manufacturer ordered a total of around TC Palgrip® plastic pallets: as a standard version in Euro size ( x 800 mm) and as a tailor-made version ( x 800 mm), an extension of the standard TC1 pallet by butt-welding procedure.

In November , the furniture factory began to change over from wood to plastic. Since then, the Craemer pallets with anti-slip deck have been running on the internal conveyor system: on roller and chain conveyors, they transport smaller and larger chipboard panels that are used to create cabinet walls. The full-surface Palgrip® anti-slip deck prevents the smooth chipboard panels from slipping; neither outer rims nor nails (as with wooden pallets) damage the sensitive cargo.

According to Arkadiusz Michal Wissuwa,  the manufacturer is “very satisfied” with the TC Palgrip® pallets. The Craemer Area Sales Manager Poland adds: “Extremely robust, stable, durable, completely recyclable, without outer rims, these pallets runs smoothly and without problems on the roller and chain conveyors of the furniture production line.” So far, only one TC Palgrip® has been damaged – due to a handling error by a forklift driver. More orders are to follow in , until only TC Palgrip® plastic pallets will be in use.

A German kitchen furniture manufacturer had already recognised the advantages in and switched to sustainable Craemer plastic pallets. In this case, with continuous use in the daily production of 350 kitchens, only of the pallets supplied had been returned in 18 years.