EPRO Awards TEFAL this Year's "Best Recycled Product" for Enjoy Kitchen Tools

EPRO (European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery Organisations) has awarded Enjoy Kitchen Tools, manufactured by TEFAL - SAS, France as this year's winner of "Best Recycled Product".

Following the success of the first Best Recycled Product Competition in 2009, earlier this year, EPRO invited the plastics industry across Europe to provide examples of products containing recycled plastics.

The competition aims to promote the cycle of plastics, as well as increase the request for recycled materials. Once again the competition has been a great success, over the two years the competition has lasted, we have seen over 60 entries from 13 countries. The entries were judged by a panel from across Europe, including representatives from EPRO, Plastics Europe and EuPR. The awards were presented at a key plastics industry event - Identiplast 2010, in London.

The top three places were awarded as below:

1. Enjoy Kitchen Tools, TEFAL SAS - France
2. eko84®, Retail Shopping Trolley, Keo S.r.l - Italy
3. FORMaBLOCK, Innovation in low cost construction, FORMaBLOCK - UK

Worth the effort

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes recycled plastics are used as material for new products. Sometimes the material is cheaper and sometimes the recycled material is just superior to an alternative. The competition therefore focused on several criterias: The entries had to contain at least 50 per cent recycled plastics. They also had to be made out of recycled used plastics packaging, entered the market and made sales in since 2008 and of course, it had to be manufactured in Europe.

The results of the this year competition show that global operating and well- known companies such as TEFAL recognize that recycled plastics is a valuable raw material for their products.

"The competition brings home the reality of what can be achieved when we all work together. For the consumer who makes the effort to collect their used packaging for recycling this competition provides some great examples of what can be achieved. For the industry we hope that it creates interests and confidence in the versatility and value of considering used plastics packaging as a material option for products. For all, we hope that more and more, used plastic packaging is seen as a valuable resource and not waste. We thank everyone for supporting the competition and look forward to seeing what's new in 2011" commented Eirik Oland, Head of EPRO Communication.