As Safeplast provides premium hose protection solutions for different industries, the quality of the work consists of various aspects. In addition to creating environmentally friendly products, the most important elements for Safeplast are innovative product development and taking charge of all product life cycle phases. These ambitions ensure Safeplast a significant pioneer status as well as the ability to offer safety and great usability.

Can a carbon footprint be so minimal that it is negative?

In the case of Safeplast, yes, it can.

When it comes to developing and manufacturing hose protection spirals, safe sleeves, and bundling straps, ecological choices are a given for Safeplast. For years and onwards, using recycled plastic has been a great sustainable choice, but developing new ideas has gone even further.

“We are the first company in the world to use plastic made from sugarcane that is refined to ethanol and then processed to polyethylene”, says Raimo Kuitunen, CEO of Safeplast.

“It is a carbon neutral choice for production, and it can even offer a negative carbon footprint. Compared to the amount of carbon dioxide released during material processing, the plants can bind carbon to themselves even more while growing.”

Innovating new solutions is always on-going. However, it is about a lot more than just environmentally friendly choices.

In the forefront of creating sustainable choices for demanding use

When it comes to being a pioneer in the hose protector industry, it is essential to make every part of a product as great as possible. As product and service development is done closely together with clients, Safeplast can come up with innovative ideas one after another.

“We are listening to our customers and their subcontractors very closely in order to answer to changing needs. In addition to one-of-a-kind materials in our products, we also provide our customers fully customized hose spirals. We offer services like no other in the world”, Kuitunen says.

Safeplast designs, produces, and distributes all their hose protection products by themselves, which is also uncommon in their field.

“It makes us independent and self-sufficient. Even after materials are becoming harder to get and deliveries getting prolonged because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we can serve our customers reliably”, Kuitunen says.

First comes safety, only then everything else

The need for reliability does not end in high quality or product deliveries. One of the key values of Safeplast is to provide safety.

“For us, valuing safety means two things. It refers to the high quality of our products that are safe to use as well as the important task Safeplast products have protecting both workers and machinery”, Kuitunen says.

“If a hose would break in the middle of a forest or other worksite, it would be really difficult and expensive to fix on the spot. Also, when working with high pressures, a puncture in a hose together with sharp objects detaching forcefully can be really dangerous. With hose guards and hose spirals, our goal is to be the top actor in work safety.”

Safety comes hand in hand with usability, as well. Since especially protection spirals are often attached to hoses manually, they need to be easy to use.

High-quality products fit to different needs and situations

It is important for Safeplast to create products with great adaptability and usability.

“As the bio-based plastic is flexible and the spirals have rounded edges, it does not get much easier to attach them to different vehicles”, Kuitunen says.

The smallest spirals have a diameter of approximately 12 mm and they are very lightweight. The biggest ones, on the other hand, get up to a diameter of 150 mm weighing 3 kg per meter. That is why Safeplast also provides tools to help with the installation of their products.

Even though many installation tools – and even products themselves – in the market may seem the same as what Safeplast offers, the small differences have a great impact.

“We have explored carefully every part of the jobs our customers face every day for a good reason. When everything works flawlessly from the very beginning to the very end – from choosing sustainable materials to making installations and usage effective – we can truly stand out and be the best partner for our customers”, Kuitunen summarizes.

This article is the first part of Safe-Stories by Safeplast series.