«We are producers of PET preforms used for blow-moulding bottles for mineral water and soft drinks, as well as detergent bottles.
Garda Plast also makes a mono-material semi-finished product, in compliance with the minimum food standards imposed by BRC Pack5, which can be customized, on the basis of customer needs in terms of shape and colour. We are part of a supply chain that has an efficient consortium system in Italy for recovery and recycling.
Since the company was founded in 1996, we have worked 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, enabling us to constantly grow in terms of space, technologies and market, as far as being noticed and acquired by Progressio Sgr, the Investment Fund known for investing in Italian businesses of excellence.
Our integrated Quality Management System covers every aspect of the business: environment, food safety and legal compliance.
What is more, we firmly believe in the value of social responsibility and we have engaged EcoVadis® to monitor and improve our environmental and social practices.

Apart from the objective of generating profit inherent in any industrial activity, we are, in fact, convinced that the sense of our commitment is working well, putting people at the centre, whether they are employees or customers.
In other words, for us, it is essential that the company performs a social function, producing wealth to then redistribute it in some way to all stakeholders.
We have thus made the basic choice of protecting first and foremost the people who are closest to us, our employees.

We operate in two factories, one in the province of Brescia and one in the province of Udine. When the first wave of Covid broke out, the workers were understandably alarmed, but we could not stop operating because our customers had to continue to produce essential goods. We therefore tried to offer all employees peace of mind, allowing them to freely decide whether to come to work or not, taking out a specific health insurance which, luckily was not used. We tried to take care of them, sharing their fears and concerns.

Moreover, when the government announced the “bonus baby sitter”, we had already voluntarily paid it to both men and women with children. And this is because we are a company that intends “to keep the windows open to the world”.

In addition, during the long emergency period, we, like others, experimented smart working, discovering that it could be an advantage for workers and for the company. All personnel not engaged in production (it is not possible to put an injection press in the garden at home!) were, therefore, able to work by remote. Over time, firstly merely by setting a good example, we returned to work on site and, without any pressure, the offices slowly repopulated.
Today, 3 years later, we have confirmed one day a week of remote working, which helps to give people greater serenity.
In short, it’s no longer the case that if employees are not in the office this means that they are not working.

Packaging, and in particular plastic packaging, has been under accusation for some time and is often singled out as one of the main sources of waste.
This narrative, besides not being true, as the data show, ignores the numerous and essential functions of packaging that guarantee our way of life and growth in consumption in large areas of the planet.
What is more, packaging performs a social function, drawing markets together, and thereby enabling the growth of productive activities, as well as the creation of wealth and employment.
It also protects goods, allowing for deferred consumption over time, and informs the consumer, protecting in this way the hygiene of products and reducing waste.

For these and many other reasons, we are convinced that also plastic packaging, in its most general sense, is a resource, an opportunity, as, regrettably, the pandemic and the war have demonstrated.
It goes without saying that packaging changes over time in accordance with the shifting of market demands. As a result, while in the past the focus was on optimisation of the shelf-life of products, today all the attention is on the simplification and reduction of the materials used, obviously with the same level of performance.

The challenge is therefore to do business in the most responsible way possible. Our planet is a closed ecosystem, in which the unlimited consumption of resources is inconceivable.
Most likely, we will have to consider the fact that doing business does not necessarily have to mean a frenetic increase in production capacity, as is often thought.
It is necessary to decommission plants that are no longer energy efficient, something easier said than done, focusing more on quality rather than quantity, discarding the idea that the market is a bottomless reservoir of business opportunities.
In short, it is necessary to change perspective if we want to save the environment.
On the other hand, it is certainly the case that substantial progress has been made in terms of sustainability.

In the past those who produced preforms also blew the bottles and then delivered them to the users: in a vehicle we could cram about 50,000 pieces; in other words, we were “transporting air”.
Now producers of mineral water and soft drinks are organised to make the bottles themselves with the preforms that we supply: we can load more than 1 million pieces on a lorry, with a huge saving in emissions.
Shall we talk about thickness? A half-litre disposable bottle today weighs 10 grammes, around 25% less than 7-8 years ago.
Looking at the future developments of this product, I can’t see the possibility of significant further savings in terms of the use of materials.

The weight will continue to be slightly reduced, but we can’t expect miracles.
Instead, we have to focus on the end-of-life of our product; we have to try to close the circle and shift from the current system for the recovery and recycling of PET containers, whose material is intended for other uses, to a circular system in which the bottle returns to being a bottle.
On the other hand, until 2019, in containers having contact with foods, it was not possible to use more than 50% of recycled material, while today it is possible to use 100% food grade rPET coming from controlled circuits.

Garda Plast is, currently one of the major users of recycled materials since, working for the detergent sector, we had the opportunity to start these productions some time ago, to gain experience in advance, implementing necessary production and control processes.
We are ready: it is now up to the customer to decide the extent of their contribution, considering that the recycled product currently costs twice that of virgin PET. An absurdity!
With regards to recycling, other aspects are also significant, including the different colour of containers.
Orange is not used to make new bottles as it is not available in economically viable lots, as opposed to green and blue/light blue.
Our customers are fully informed of this situation, but changes are hindered by marketing criteria, which attribute colour a strategic value.
We have, however, examples in other countries where large brands have shifted to clear bottles: this is an encouraging sign, which could anticipate an intervention by the legislator.
In actual fact, I’ve stopped worrying because I’m convinced that, in the end, the reasonable and rational solution will always prevail».