Blog - Repsco

REPSCO

Posted on April 3, 2024April 9, 2024 by @saret

When it comes to recycling, REPSCO, Inc. does not just talk about it, they live it – day in, day out for more than 30 years.
The manufacturing company, which moved from Colorado to the Riverbank Industrial Complex nearly five years ago, has emerged as the industry leader in producing 100% recyclable custom-designed plastic slips sheets, a viable alternative to wood pallets.

Innovation is a long-standing tradition at REPSCO – they have focused on every stage of the recycling process, from source separating material, to refining its development in order to net the highest quality polymers in the post-consumer market. This attention to detail has allowed the company to reduce costs in recycling and pass those savings on to their customers.

REPSCO continues to be the front-runner in developing turn-key solutions for reducing customer shipping and storage costs, while increasing load handling capacity. The company has become proficient in the production of the slip sheets with specifications that can meet any unitized load size, weight and application. Additionally, they are unique in the sense that they understand the transportation and storage business as well as the recycled plastic industry. This is a perfect example of how environmental stewardship can lower the cost of doing business.

Nothing exemplifies this more than REPSCO’s Green-to-Gold program, an initiative that encourages its customers and vendors to recycle their uses slip sheets, reusing former products again and again, while saving money, conserving resources and reducing their environmental impact in the process.

How is this possible?

By offering incentives to return used REPSCO slip sheets to their facilities to be recycled.
By utilizing post-consumer and post-industrial recycling in the production of their products and pass the savings on to their customers.
By operating a closed-loop recycling system, REPSCO ensures sustainability with its product.

With the millions of wood pallets in America’s warehouses today, it’s time for an alternative – it’s time to partner with REPSCO!
For more information, contact George Isaac, Sales Director, at 209-312-7000 or at gisaac@repsco.com

#itsallaboutrecycling #sustainability

What are plastic slip sheets?

Posted on November 1, 2021April 9, 2024 by @saret

As the name implies, slip sheets are flat surfaces used as palettes, in many cases these slip sheets are made from recyclable plastic. However, it is also available in other composite materials including paperboard and solid fiber in many cases resulting in an inferior product. As a viable alternative to wooden pallets, the slip sheet offers convenience in loading and dispensing goods in transit. As a feasible and cost-effective alternative to traditional pallets, slip sheets are favored by both manufacturers and logistics companies. They are eco-friendly, safer, and less costly than conventional pallets, not to mention they take up less warehouse/truck space allowing for more goods to be transported.

Many companies have embraced slip sheets in recent decades for several reasons, including streamlining productivity, increasing storage space, reducing shipment weight, expediting distribution and transportation procedures, and enhancing a sanitary work environment. The product typically follows the shape of a pallet (square), but due to the malleability of the material, it can easily be made into a specific size or shape.

A forklift’s front end must be equipped with a push-pull assembly to use slip sheets and stack or remove load correctly.

The benefits of plastic slip sheets

The benefits of this solution include:

Easy maneuverability: Manufacturing and packaging industries benefit from slip sheets for efficient freight dispersal and easy maneuverability, which is highly advantageous as opposed to wooden pallets.
High ROI: Return on Investment is much higher due to the lower price and higher durability and product life compared to traditional wooden pallets.
Less weight: A slip sheet weighs approximately 0.5 kg, on the other hand, a wooden pallet can weigh up to 12-20 kg. You can save up to 20 kg weight per pallet, totaling 640 kg per truck.
More sanitary: The large unused area between the pallets can be easily infested by rodents that can damage the goods. In addition, plastic slip sheets do not require any special treatment such as fumigation or disinfection.
Racking efficiency: While 1,000 slip sheets occupy only one square meter, 1,000 wooden pallets occupy more than 70 square meters, making a significant difference in the space required by each solution.

From the above benefits, it is easy to see why slip sheets are a better solution than traditional pallets, but the combination of price advantage (slip sheets cost around 85% less than wood pallets) and sustainability has convinced many companies to make the switch.

Why partner with REPSCO?

REPSCO Inc manufactures extruded plastic sheet products that are custom-designed. For over 35 years, the company was committed to improving every element of the recycling process, from sourcing materials to refining the process to produce polymers of the highest quality for reuse.

When working with Home Depot, REPSCO helped save the world-famous home improvement and furniture retailer more than $7 million in logistics. If you are a manufacturer or a logistics provider and are interested in how you could benefit from plastic slip sheets, don’t hesitate to give us a call or submit a quote request – our customer success team is always happy to help you determine if Plastic slip sheets are right for your company.

How plastic slip sheets make economic sense

Posted on November 1, 2021April 9, 2024 by @saret

Slip Sheets are an innovative solution that offers logistics and production companies many advantages over traditional pallets. Due to their size and material, they are easier to handle and take up much less space with or without goods – a real economic advantage for logistics and manufacturing companies. In this article, we show how slip sheets can help your company achieve greater transparency and flexibility and how you can significantly reduce your logistics costs.

What are slip sheets?

In commercial transport, slip sheets are thin, pallet-sized sheets of plastic, heavy laminated kraft paper, or corrugated fibreboard used to replace traditional wooden pallets. A slip sheet is used to support wares loaded onto it during transportation and delivery.

This solution, as well as pallets, is usually needed to facilitate the handling, storage, and transportation of goods. Products are typically packed in packages (e.g., cans or cartons), a certain number of which fit on a pallet or an intermediate shelf. These can then be stacked on top of each other, which means much better use of space in logistics.

Economic benefits of slip sheets

Why does it make sense to use slip sheets instead of pallets?

Lighter weight: Pallets are made of hardwood and are very heavy due to their structure, with an average weight of 20 kg. In comparison, slip sheets weigh 620 g/m2, which is a great advantage in logistics. Especially for stackable goods, the weight of the pallets can account for up to 20-30% of the total weight. With the slip sheet solution, this can be reduced to a fraction of this, so that smaller loading trolleys or even racking systems are sufficient.
Lower height: The height of slip sheets is much lower compared to conventional pallets. Even the most massive versions are smaller by half an inch, but in the standard case, you should expect less than half the height of a wooden pallet. This can result in significant space savings of up to 15-20% in both storage and transportation.
Zero maintenance: With many traditional logistics solutions, maintenance can be a major challenge, especially hygiene and the replacement of broken or damaged pallets. With slip sheets, no such maintenance is required, as damaged pallets can be easily replaced, while there is simply no room for rodents to infest.
Highly customizable: Due to the material and thickness of slip sheets, they are much easier to shape and some types can even be resized on site.
An environmentally friendly solution: Companies have to spend more and more on environmental protection, which is reflected in logistics, including the cost of waste collection. REPSCO slip sheets are made of high-quality recycled plastic that can be reused later and produces much less waste.

REPSCO, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, offers slip sheet products to suit all your business needs. They cost a fraction of the price of traditional pallets but make economic sense for a whole host of other reasons. With plastic slip sheets, you can make your logistics processes more efficient, more transparent, and significantly more economical.

California: Home to Global Innovators in Waste Reduction

Posted on August 17, 2021April 9, 2024 by @saret

Six organizations and/or individuals receive recognition for leading the way with products and services for waste reduction and a circular economy

(Sacramento, CA) – As trash and litter continue to accumulate in our communities, the California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC) annually honors the best and brightest companies for their creative approaches tackling post-consumer material management problems. CPSC’s Arrow Award recipients illustrate how innovative business models in California are now offering products and services that support responsible and cost-effective waste management and a circular economy, while creating new green-designed products, and offering products and services offsetting the negative impact of society’s increasing waste generation.

“The Arrow Award winners are leaders in their industries managing resources responsibly, protecting the earth, and creating jobs,” said Doug Kobold, Executive Director of CPSC, “which means these California companies have made great strides when it comes to environmental achievements that minimize impacts locally and globally.

Visions Quality Coatings (www.visionsqualitycoatings.com) is the winner of the 2021 Green Arrow Award for system and design innovations. The Green Arrow Award is given to an organization demonstrating an innovative system approach that removes or reduces toxic or other problematic attributes present in other similar products. Visions has accomplished this feat by recycling paint into new products, such as new paint and even stepping stones using the non-recycled paint material. Their remanufacturing process for left over paint consumes only 1 gallon of water to make 1 gallon of paint compared to 13 gallons for virgin paint and is available at low-cost to residential and commercial customers. Further, Visions creates a decorative rock product that can also be used as an aggregate for precast concrete products that is made with feedstock material from paint wash water (part of the paint recycling process) and carpet backing. Visions participates in California’s paint and carpet stewardship programs as a processor and incorporates materials into their recycled products.

Conscious Container is the winner of the 2021 Bow & Arrow Award for coalition building and creative partnerships. Bow & Arrow recipients demonstrate synergistic relationships between producers, distributors, retailers, public agencies, and other stakeholders. Conscious Container is advancing the reuse narrative through action by building a returnable/refillable glass bottle marketplace here in US, starting in California. This Benefit Corporation business enables global, regional and local beverage producers, and their customers, a powerful option to reduce their single-use packaging waste with Conscious Container selling, collecting, washing and reselling their returnable bottles for refilling. Working in collaboration with Anheuser-Busch, Conscious Container completed a successful refillable beer bottle pilot this past Spring in the San Francisco north bay area. They received a CalRecycle GHG Reuse Grant this year to support the rollout of a refillable wine bottle program and are driving landmark California returnable beverage container legislation (AB-962) to enable returnable bottles to flow through the current Bottle Bill. As the market trends accelerate towards reusables, Conscious Container is advocating and engaging stakeholders across the entire value chain to bring this impactful circular economy waste reduction solution to all.

Little Kamper (www.littlekamper.com) was presented with the 2021 Infinity Arrow Award for service and take-back. The Infinity Award is given to an organization to recognize efforts to initiate an outstanding Take Back program for one or more products as an additional convenience and service to their customers. All adventures should be zero waste adventures. Little Kamper is a retail propane exchange program for reusable 1 lb. propane cylinders. This innovative program creates an opportunity for California retailers to offer a sustainable alternative to single-use propane cylinders and ultimately diverts them from the landfill and saving local governments fairly significant money when the cylinders are actually properly recycled. Little Kamper’s exchange program is a convenient process for retailers to exchange cylinders and send back to Little Kamper to be safely refilled. This program is saving our parks and local government money from processing less hazardous waste.

REPSCO, Inc. (www.repsco.com) is the recipient of the 2021 Golden Arrow Award for overall excellence in product stewardship. The Golden Arrow Award is given to an organization that exemplifies all the characteristics of the Green, Bow & Arrow, and Infinity Awards. REPSCO manufactures 100% recycled custom-designed extruded plastic slip sheets that are a viable alternative for wood pallets. Wood pallets are typically made from virgin wood sources and many are either ground up as fuel for biomass plants or end up in landfills. REPSCO exemplifies product stewardship by assisting major global brands to change their shipping methods so as to use these reusable plastic sheet products in lieu of wood pallets, resulting in their clients saving money, reducing waste, and creating an immunity to increasing wood prices. REPSCO implemented a voluntary take-back program – called Green to Gold – for its slip sheets when the product is no longer usable. REPSCO collects and recycles them back into new slip sheets — resulting in a circular economy that results in significant improvement in REPSCO’s, and their clients’, environmental footprints. REPSCO clients include those in the food and beverage industry, along with the agricultural sector, just to name a few, and that client base is expanding rapidly.

In addition to our Arrow Awards, CPSC has recognized Courtney Scott from Zero Waste Sonoma as our 2021 Associate of the Year. Courtney represents Zero Waste Sonoma on several product stewardship projects and policies, such as a CalRecycle grant with the ReFuel Your Fun Campaign and collaborating with the carpet and mattress stewardship programs. She manages the Sonoma Household Hazardous Waste Facility, actively organizes community collection events, and educates residents and businesses on how to handle materials in the most environmentally responsible way possible.

CPSC also wants to express gratitude for California Waste Haulers Council (CWHC) and recognize it as the 2021 Sponsor of the year. CWHC is a group representing waste haulers, recyclers, and facility owners and operators that work to help their communities become more sustainable. They work with a variety of stakeholders in addressing the array of challenging policy issues confronting the waste industry.

The California Product Stewardship Council’s Annual Arrow Awards ceremony took place during the California Resource Recovery Association’s 45^th annual conference and tradeshow, held virtually on August 16-19, 2021.

WAPA | Western Area Power Administration – Partnership

Posted on July 1, 2021June 5, 2024 by @saret

REPSCO recently joined WAPA to work with more companies in the nut processing business here in California. We work with a local nut company that changed from fiber slip sheets to plastic slip sheets. We helped them realize a huge savings, better quality and top notch service from our customer service team.

REPSCO is looking to work with other companies in the nut processing business in California due to this success. If you are part of a nut processing business it is worth chatting with us because in most cases we are going to help you to save a lot of money and improve your warehouse efficiency and have more space for storage.

WAPA was formed in 2009 to answer the industry’s call for representation and expertise in critical compliance areas, such as air pollution, food safety and safety services. Their consulting services cover safety and environmental issues, including air pollution permitting, SPCC plans and hazardous materials business plans. So, obviously they were a perfect fit for a company like Repsco leading the green initiative push in California.

Governor’s Award for Excellence in Export

Posted on May 17, 2021April 9, 2024 by @saret

May 2014. During World Trade Day on May 7, 2014, REPSCO received the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Export.

This award was presented by the governor, John Hickenlooper, and was given to REPSCO in recognition for being a leader in exporting goods manufactured in the state of Colorado.

Currently, REPSCO is exporting plastic slip sheets to a multitude of countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Plastic slip sheets are a shipping platform alternative to a wood pallet and made from 100% recycled plastic, much of which is sourced locally in Colorado

President Paul Bennett, Jr., is forecasting up to 20 percent growth

Posted on January 26, 2021April 9, 2024 by @saret

The history of REPSCO dates back to 1971 when its predecessor company became a pioneer in California plastic recycling. In 1988, the company expanded into manufacturing products made with recycled plastics, and today’s REPSCO was born. Housed within a 50,000-square foot facility in Modesto, REPSCO’s factory produces 8 million pounds of custom plastic slip sheets annually. The factory runs 24 hours a day and five days a week, bringing in annual revenues of $6 million. Bennett purchased the company from its previous owner in 2000.

Recent News & Articles

REPSCO

What are plastic slip sheets?

REPSCO

What are plastic slip sheets?

The benefits of plastic slip sheets

The benefits of this solution include:

Why partner with REPSCO?

How plastic slip sheets make economic sense

What are slip sheets?

Economic benefits of slip sheets

Why does it make sense to use slip sheets instead of pallets?

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California: Home to Global Innovators in Waste Reduction

Six organizations and/or individuals receive recognition for leading the way with products and services for waste reduction and a circular economy

WAPA | Western Area Power Administration – Partnership

Governor’s Award for Excellence in Export

President Paul Bennett, Jr., is forecasting up to 20 percent growth