NANUK, the Terrebonne, Que.-based maker of high-end protective gear cases, has launched its first line of products made from recycled material in an effort to reduce its carbon footprint - and to increase the reuse of waste plastics.

The six products in the collection are manufactured with 54 per cent to 84 per cent recycled post-consumer plastic, according to Philippe Koyess, NANUK’s vice-president of innovation and product development.

“We believe that there’s enough plastic out there that we don’t need to keep producing it,” Koyess said in an interview with Sustainable Biz Canada.

“Our goal is to reduce our carbon footprint. By using recycled material, it’s one of the great ways to make sure less resin, less plastic that are still very usable ends up in the garbage.”

The company’s hard cases have been sold in over 50 countries, and are designed to protect high-value and sensitive items such as cameras, microphones, drones, firearms and first aid kits.

NANUK’s recycled material cases

According to Koyess, NANUK-R is a variant of its original collection with the case made up of injected post-consumer resin. Over 90 per cent of the resin is comprised of recycled plastic, sourced from used electronics like televisions and computers.

The resin is the “best reliable source for the type of resin we’re looking for,” he added.

The handles, backplates and wheels are not made from recycled resin and are instead sourced from virgin plastics.

The recycled resin comes from a Montreal company but Koyess declined to disclose any further details.

The greatest challenge in engineering the NANUK-R products was ensuring the post-consumer resin is consistently comparable to virgin resins, he continued. The recycling firm was able to successfully engineer resin that met its requirement for batch consistency, according to Koyess.

NANUK-R is aimed at tackling the plastic and carbon pollution from the company’s products. Using recycled resin cuts carbon emissions by at least 60 per cent compared to virgin resin, Koyess said.

To further understand its environmental impact, NANUK is performing a life-cycle analysis for NANUK-R.

NANUK cases are designed to be highly robust - they come with a limited lifetime warranty - and this durability also facilitates sustainability, he said, by reducing the need to dispose of used cases and purchase new ones. NANUK-R is also recyclable at its end of life.

The choice to offer a collection of hard cases made from recycled materials was described as a “no brainer” by Charles Benoit, NANUK’s senior director of marketing and business strategy. He said there is strong enthusiasm within the company from the commercial side, and he expects the products to take up a larger portion of its market share as users become familiar with the NANUK-R line.

Benoit said NANUK-R is priced “slightly higher” than the company’s baseline collection, with Koyess noting the research and development into the cases has added additional cost for the product. The six cases range in price from about $65 (213x152x 94 mm, or 8.4x6x3.7 inches of interior space) up to $342 (521x 287x191 mm, or 20.5x11.3x7.5 inches).

NANUK plans to build on the inaugural NANUK-R collection by adding more models and increasing the percentage of recycled materials while maintaining durability. The company also aims to eventually have cases made entirely of recycled plastic.