Employing around 300 people, it designs, develops, manufactures and distributes a range of innovative plastic storage products for the home and office market.

It has won big contracts with major companies including Staples and Walmart. During the worst of the pandemic, it also provided NHS nurses and paramedics with storage boxes to keep PPE organised and tidy.

Sustainability is in the company’s DNA, says founder and CEO Mike Pickles. It is common sense, as well as good business practice, to minimise cost and reuse something if you can. 

But as the business has grown – it processes 300 tonnes of plastic material a week – it has created more waste. It needed a sustainable solution.

To find an alternative application for 30 tonnes of scrap plastic, Pickles sought asset lending from Lombard to acquire a Recycling Grinder Machine, Blender and Bagger, which shreds and blends the waste plastic to manufacture handles and boxes. 

The unusable polypropylene goes into the grinder, which turns the waste into granular material that’s then put back into the production process.

By investing in technology that could recycle on an industrial scale, Really Useful Products found a solution that could meet its sustainability requirements without compromising its high-quality design spec. Recycled and reused can still be stylish, and really useful.

“Lombard understands us; they can see how this type of investment will develop our business as we look at other innovations to support our sustainability plans. They also trust that we can deliver,” says Pickles.

Never has there been a more important time to address climate change – businesses of all sizes play a role. Lee Moody, Lombard Relationship Director, Yorkshire and North Derbyshire, says: 

“I’ve worked with Mike and his team for a number of years now and have a facility in place that makes these transactions simple to drawdown. It’s great to see the machine at work, delivering outputs, and seeing the part Lombard played to support them on the journey to being a more sustainable business.”