The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) recently presented a 2009 Evergreen Award to Safeplay Systems, the company that manufactures EcoPlay Playgrounds, designed for commercial use.
EcoPlay is manufactured from post-consumer, recycled HDPE plastic (milk jugs). An average EcoPlay Playground play structure keeps approximately 30,000 milk jugs out of local landfill.
GSA’s Evergreen Award Program was developed in 1998, at the Integrated Workplace Acquisition Center (IWACenter) to support the federal government’s environmental initiatives—by recognizing the efforts of GSA’s business partners in the areas of recycling, affirmative procurement and waste prevention. This is the first year for SPORTS to be included as a category and Safeplay Systems became the first annual recipient. (SPORTS is an acronym for Sports, Promotional, Outdoor, Recreation, Trophies and Signs.) The Evergreen Award itself “closes the recycling loop” in that it is made from recycled glass.
Safeplay Systems makes environmental stewardship a vital part of its daily business. “We have found that, contrary to a commonly-held belief, being ‘green’ does not cost more—in our case, it saves us money,” Lorraine Gredys, CEO of Safeplay Systems, said. “While saving money is not the reason we seek to be good to the environment, it sure is a nice bonus.”
Every department of the company makes a concerted effort to incorporate recycled materials, adopt environmentally sustainable processes and implement energy efficient solutions to manufacture EcoPlay Playgrounds—which are also recyclable. A few examples of these efforts listed in the Evergreen Award application include:
Safeplay Systems recycles as many materials as possible from all business departments—from packaging, to the oil from its trucks, to the magazines and trade journals in the office. This allowed the company to go from twice-a- week removal of a full trash dumpster, to once-a-week removal of a small dumpster that is less than half full.
Safeplay Systems now produces an “online” catalog instead of a traditional “printed” catalog—resulting in an annual savings of: 5 tons of paper (equivalent to 37 fully grown trees); 79 million BTU’s of energy; 71 lbs. of sulfur dioxide; 37,027 gallons of wastewater; 15,814 pounds CO2 equivalent, and 5,677 pounds of solid waste.
While all EcoPlay Playgrounds come with a 50-year warranty, Safeplay Systems has developed an incentive program to encourage customers to complete the “Sustainability Cycle” once the playground has served its’ intended purpose. Play structures may be returned directly to Safeplay Systems for re-recycling. As a reward, Safeplay Systems provides a credit toward a new EcoPlay playground in exchange for the materials returned. This credit is fully transferable—allowing customers to pass the credit on to a local school, church or other organization of their choice.
“It is an honor to receive an Evergreen Award from GSA,” Bob Gredys, President of Safeplay Systems, said. “We have been a ‘green’ company for many, many years—it is what made our company stand out from others. Now that ‘green’ is trendy, I’ve been discouraged to see so much ‘greenwashing’ being done—making consumers dubious of ALL ‘green’ claims. This Evergreen Award means so much—it is a validation of what we have been doing and it is a major morale boost to me and every employee of Safeplay Systems. We are doing the right thing and our efforts are being noticed—we still stand out.”
For more information, visit http://www.safeplaysystems.com/
