Local warehouse, manufacturing, retail, e-commerce, post and parcel and 3PL industries are asked to think what machinery and equipment can be repaired instead of replaced.
Logistics firm Southgate Global, of King’s Lynn, is appealing to customers to consider repair or renovation across their packing and material handling equipment portfolio. This covers carts, trolleys, shredders and strapping equipment through to void fill systems, mobile power workstations and more.
According to a recent Deloitte report, discarded repairable goods account for 35 million tons of waste, 30 million tons of resources and 261 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year in the EU.1 This is having a detrimental impact on the environment, with 6.3 million tonnes of waste sent to landfill in the UK in 2022 alone.2
Southgate’s Technical Services team is seeking to extend product life for years ahead and can help identify what is worth repairing and what has come to the end of useful life.
This is done by considering the cost of the repair compared to the cost of replacement, along with the equipment’s age, typical lifecycle and whether replacement offers significantly important feature improvements and related benefits over existing equipment.
This approach can also help organisations reduce their carbon footprint and help meet ESG goals.
A Southgate customer has already made significant steps towards its sustainability goals by assessing ‘repair not replace’ options.
The large e-commerce business faced significant downtime due to damaged carts and trolleys but, with Southgate’s help, it was able to reduce downtime and Capex by over £40 million in a single year.
According to analysis by Southgate, the carbon footprint of replacing a roll cage trolley is six times greater than the carbon footprint created to repair it. This is due to the use of new raw materials and the manufacturing processes involved in replacing them. It also covers steel and aluminium, emissions generated during welding and transportation.
John Maher, Head of Technical Services at Southgate Global, said: “At Southgate our mantra is ‘repurpose, repair before we replace’, which is why we’ve invested heavily in our team, to help our customers not only reduce their downtime, but also their environmental impact and carbon footprint.
“We understand how detrimental it can be to an organisation when a piece of machinery or equipment stops working. And with the ability to order a replacement in a matter of minutes, which could arrive the following day, we appreciate why a business might have chosen to replace instead of repair items.
“However, we can offer a viable and more sustainable alternative to replacing equipment each time it needs repairing. We’re on hand to help organisations meet their sustainability goals, without compromising on the quality of equipment or their operational productivity.”
References
www.action.deloitte.com/insight/3744/right-to-repair-means-more-than-a-quick-fix-for-environment-economy
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-waste-data/uk-statistics-on-waste#:~:text=England%20is%20responsible%20for%2081,tonnes%20UK%20total%20in%202022.
www.advancedtech.com/blog/industrial-parts-replace-vs-repair-always-best-decision
