With single-use plastic at the forefront of current global environmental concerns, at first glance, people may wonder how we sleep at night, selling single-use/disposable pumps… Surely the world doesn’t need more single-use plastic, right? … Well, it takes a little explanation, but the reality is that our pumps can actually have an enormous positive environmental impact on the way that we package, ship and consume our fluid products.
QX140-DL pump
As an example, let’s look at our QX140-DL, and apply its use in the beverages industry. Firstly, we are proud to say that, with some technical modifications, the QX140-DL is now made from 97%* recyclable plastic from the polyolefin family. Each pump weighs a total of 17 grams. This pump can dilute in-pump and handle viscous concentrates up to 25-1. So, a fruit juice dispensing machine containing a 10 litre bag of 7:1 concentrate, and a filtered mains water inlet, can serve 160 x500ml drinks. And, as long as these 160 drinks are dispensed into paper cups or reusable containers, this provides the potential of saving 160 x 500ml PET drinks bottles, each weighing on average approximately 13 grams of plastic, saving a total of around 2kg of plastic bottles. Even considering typical rigid cartridges commonly used in the industry, we can achieve a 90% reduction in plastic waste!
QX25-SD
With our smaller QX25-SD, weighing 6.5 grams, concentrations up to 500:1 are possible, so a pump attached to a 0.5L pouch of concentrate can produce 250L – enough for 500 half litre servings of a natural flavoured water drink. This would save 6.5 kg of plastic per 6.5g pump – that’s 1000 times less plastic! On top of this, there is also the huge benefit of shipping less water: shipping one 10 litre bag of 7:1 concentrate will save transporting up to 70 litres of water. Our LR-13 pump at 500-1 concentrate can save shipping just under 250 litres of water, which means less trucks, and far less pollution from fossil fuels.
Whilst on the subject of the negative impacts of travel to our planet, the disposable nature of our Quantex pumps mean that dispensing machines require far less maintenance call-outs. Because there is a new pump on each bag of product, engineers will not be called out to fix failing pumps. In fact, the pumps are highly accurate throughout pack-life and the strong vacuum capability of the pumps mean better bag evacuation and again, less waste.
So, this is why we can sleep at night, because we are dreaming of an end to single-use plastic bottles, and a future of game-changing fluid dispensers, making refill-stations in supermarkets more achievable. Due to the disposable nature of our pumps, one design of machine can deliver a wide range of fluids from detergents to beverages without cross contamination. We can pump virtually any liquid you can find in your home, whether it is flavoured water, milks including baby milk, juices, smoothies, carbonated/nitrogenated drinks, beer and wine, spirits, yogurts, jams and sweet/savoury spreads (including peanut butter), condiments and dips, cooking oils, fresh soups (with no damage to chunks), health and beauty products, washing machine liquids, and household products including bleach.
Sadly environmental impact will not drive change alone but, coupled with the cost savings of adopting Quantex technology, we are optimistic for a brighter future.
It may take a few years to achieve our dream, but we have already made a start with some visionary customers. Here are two examples of game-changing beverage dispensers enabled by our Quantex disposable pumps:
Fresh Blends® Frozen Beverages Platform
Linstream