Reducing Emissions

Crocodile Packaging’s sustainability plan is to focus on reducing emissions in it’s manufacturing process as well as reducing unnecessary waste.

In 2014, Crocodile invested in a new Biomass Boiler system which heats the factory during the winter months and ensures that all small unusable offcuts from wooden materials are used to produce clean energy rather than needing to be disposed of as waste, offsetting emissions, and becoming closer to carbon neutral.

The boiler is fed from wood waste by-products that are extracted from the factory, processed if required through an industrial chipper and then transported by conveyor to the remotely monitored boiler which self-regulates to ensure that air is optimally heated and cycled through the adjacent factory.

Sustainable Practices 

• Low-cost heating: Before the boiler was installed the factory was heated by a combination of natural gas and electric heaters. These were expensive to run and inefficient because they only heated small areas around the factory, leaving many cold spots – not pleasant in the depths of winter.
• 24/7 heating: Heating now takes place 24 hours per day during the winter months with warm air from the biomass boiler system being circulated throughout the production space ensuring that all areas of the factory are the same temperature whichever shift is in operation.
• Efficiency: In addition to the saving on oil and electricity for factory heating, the modern Biomass boiler is extremely efficient, burning more than 98% of the material fed to the burners with minimal production of ash and waste.
• Emissions: A combination of highly efficient burning technology and state-of-the-art filter systems mean that the emissions are kept at ultra-low levels with NOx, SO2 and particulate emissions all lower than a modern diesel vehicle.
• Carbon neutral: Crocodile sources more than 90% of its raw material from sustainable supplies, meaning that the timber used in our packaging comes from forests that are harvested and replanted to provide continuous, sustainable timber. The CO2 emissions produced from our boiler are, therefore, re-used by trees planted in new forestation meaning that the biomass boiler is a carbon neutral installation.