Plastic is not the problem. Unnecessary plastic is.

Say “plastic” in a sustainability discussion and the conversation can become very simple, very quickly. Less is good. More is bad.

For a company that makes plastic components, the reality is more complicated than that.

There are products where plastic is there for a very good reason. There are applications where changing the material can make a product lighter or easier to manufacture. And there are applications, particularly in the medical sector, where strict safety, technical and regulatory requirements limit which materials can be used in the first place.

At the same time, there is plastic that never needed to be used. Excess material. Production scrap. Components that could have been designed with less material from the start.

That is where the question becomes more useful: where do we need plastic, and how can we use it smarter?

Sometimes virgin material is still the right choice

Most of the plastic Alvi uses today is still virgin material. This is partly because many of the components we manufacture have strict technical requirements. In medical and certain industrial applications, material specifications may be set by the customer or dictated by safety and regulatory requirements.

That does not mean recycled material is off the table. In 2025, 10.9% of Alvi’s plastic resin inflow was post-consumer recycled material. A further 46.1 tonnes came from production scrap that was regrinded and reused in another manufacturing cycle.

The important part is knowing where each option makes sense.

A recycled material that compromises the requirements of a medical component is not a better solution simply because it is recycled. Where recycled material can be used safely and effectively, however, there is a clear reason to use more of it.

Sometimes plastic can be the smarter material

The same applies when comparing plastic with other materials.

One example in Alvi’s latest sustainability report comes from a project with Siemens Energy. The original design for a battery cooling solution used aluminium. It worked, but the components were heavy, costly to manufacture and difficult to scale for automated, high-volume production.

Working with IV Moulding early in the development process, the solution was redesigned for plastic injection moulding.

The finished solution became significantly lighter and more cost-effective, while also being better suited to automated production. The lower weight also reduces the overall weight of the vehicle, with an effect on emissions during its lifetime.

It is one example, not a rule that plastic is always the better material. But it shows why simply asking “how do we use less plastic?” can miss the point.

Sometimes the better question is: what should this component be made from in the first place?

The best scrap is the scrap you never make

Material choice is only part of the picture.

Once a component is designed for injection moulding, small decisions can affect how much raw material is needed and how much becomes scrap. Alvi therefore works with customers on material efficiency and product design, particularly when the company is involved early enough in the development process to influence those choices.

And when plastic scrap is generated, the first option is often to keep it inside the production cycle.

At Alvi’s injection moulding facilities, sprues and other production scrap can be regrinded and fed back into production as secondary raw material where product requirements allow it. This reduces waste before the material ever leaves the factory.

There is nothing particularly glamorous about a grinder next to a production line. But every kilogram that can go back into a useful product is a kilogram that does not have to be treated as waste.

You also need to know what you are measuring

Making better decisions about materials depends on knowing what is actually being used.

Måns Emeus
Project Manager Sustainability at Alvi Group

“A key part of how we work is focusing on how we get better. One of the main ways we measure that, from a sustainability perspective, is by consistently improving our data accuracy.”

One of the changes in the latest report is the move away from calculations based mainly on how much money Alvi spent on production materials. The company is increasingly using activity-based data instead, including the actual kilograms of polymers and other materials purchased. Alvi also recalculated its 2024 emissions baseline with the improved methodology so that the two years could be compared on the same basis. Read more about the shift from kroner to kilos.

For Måns, that willingness to go back and improve the numbers is part of the work.

“When we set our first emission baseline in 2024, we knew it would eventually need to be redone. But we needed a starting point, to get going, and to have something to actually improve on.”

The sharper the picture becomes, the easier it is to see where material is being used well, where too much is being lost, and where the next improvement should happen. Måns reflects on the baseline work on LinkedIn.

A more useful conversation about plastic

Plastic has an environmental footprint. Alvi’s own sustainability report makes that clear, and raw materials account for a substantial part of the company’s value-chain emissions.

But treating every kilogram of plastic as the same problem does not help much.

A medical component with strict material requirements is different from avoidable production scrap. A lighter plastic component replacing a heavier alternative is different from excess material designed into a part. Regrinding useful scrap back into production is different from sending it out as waste.

For Alvi, the work is therefore less about pursuing “less plastic” as a goal in itself.

It is about using the right material for the job, using no more of it than necessary, and getting as much value as possible from the material that enters the factory.

That is a harder question than whether plastic is good or bad.

It is also a much more useful one.