This year’s ‘Global Recycling Day’ saw BMRA member, EMR, support JMDA Design’s mission to raise awareness of reducing the impact of children’s car seats on landfill sites worldwide.

It is estimated that around 250,000 children’s car seats reach their end of life every year in the UK and 90 per cent of these are sent to landfill.  JMDA Design, a leading global design company specialising in the design of children’s car safety seats, announced in July 2018 its commitment to reduce the number of units entering landfill.

To mark the day, EMR recycled over 30 car seats at its facility in Birmingham. In the trial, the car seats were placed in end-of-life vehicles and put through its industrial shredder and separated out into different recyclable components. The metals were separated for reuse and the plastics were sent to EMR’s plastics division, MBA Polymers, to create plastic pellets that can be used in the production process.

The dismantling of this many car seats manually would take days but was completed in a matter of seconds by the team at EMR and their specialist equipment.

Creative and Managing Director at JMDA Design, Derrick Barker said: “We were delighted to support Global Recycling Day this year especially as our car seat recycling initiative gathers momentum. We are all becoming more aware of the need to reduce waste and commit to safeguarding the future of our planet. The car seat industry comes with its own set of challenges.

“Firstly, car seats can’t be resold due to the potential risk of their structure being compromised, and secondly, dismantling car seats for recycling can be labour intensive due to the mix of materials and complex structures. A single car seat consists of different types of plastics, metals, foams, harness webbing and fabrics which are the reason why most car seats end their life in landfill sites. We’re thrilled to be working with EMR and their plastics division, MBA Polymers, who orchestrated this trial. We were astounded by the speed and the precision in which the car seats were separated into materials, recovered and recycled.”

EMR’s Marketing and Communications Director, Gareth Williams said: “As a global leader in metal recycling, we recognise the importance of recycling as our natural resources won’t last forever and landfilling is unsustainable. We can recycle everything from a toaster to an aircraft carrier and have invested heavily in developing our own technologies in our quest to be the global leader in the provision of sustainable materials. We were shocked to hear that over 90 per cent of children’s car seats in the UK are sent to landfill. We want to join forces with organisations like JMDA, to help reduce the amount of recyclable products entering landfill sites.”

For more information about the new child car seat recycling scheme that JMDA and EMR have developed, please call +44 (0) 1386 426100, or email [email protected].