25 Jun 2020 Covid-19 response and adaptation: What Polyoak’s been doing
Polyoak Packaging, a major packaging supplier to the foodbev sectors, reports on its ‘new normal’ and other extraordinary activities in the Covid-19 era.
Recognising the important role it plays in ensuring the uninterrupted supply of essential packaging for food, beverages and products needed to survive the Covid lockdown, Polyoak took proactive steps very early on in South Africa’s Covid-19 crisis to ensure the safety of its people and to bolster its operations.
Before the lockdown commenced on March 26, 2020, Polyoak already had preventative measures and internal communications in place that exceeded government regulations, as confirmed by Department of Labour site inspections.
Employees were provided with personal hand sanitisers, and taxi fares were subsidised to enable spatial distancing whilst commuting between home and Polyoak.
Special Covid-19 educational material was developed in numerous languages to help safeguard employees at work, but also at home with guidelines on self-isolation, home prevention and even information to assist parents with home schooling, as well as a dedicated help line for employees feeling isolated or overwhelmed.
Polyoak an Essential Service
Polyoak’s sites nationwide were granted Essential Services Certificates to operate throughout lockdown levels 5 and 4, albeit under extremely strict and challenging conditions.
Polyoak took this opportunity to carefully review the finest detail of its operations, from clocking-in systems to site layouts and shift patterns, to absolutely minimise the risk of Covid-19 transmission.
Polyoak Group MD, Jeremy Mackintosh says, “Covid has changed the way we work. Polyoak embraces this chance for continued improvement. Our business is robust, and we have succeeded through some tough conditions.
“We salute our customers and suppliers who continue to support us through the lockdown, as well as our dedicated employees working under difficult conditions, to ensure that we don’t let our customers and the nation down. We remain focused.”
Open for business
Polyoak continues to operate under strict safety protocols with temperature checks, hand washing and sanitising stations at entrances, specific routes for movement of people, well-developed contact-tracing processes and even emergency isolation pods in case employees experience symptoms at work, requiring immediate isolation.
Although there were limitations on what sort of packaging could be sold during lockdown levels 5 and 4, there has been significantly higher demand for drums and bottles used for sanitisers, cleaning detergents and chemicals.
New Bell Bottle range
Polyoak launched a new range of 28mm neck Bell Bottles with trigger sprays to facilitate the dispersion of liquids such as cleaning detergents, sanitisers and pesticides.
The recyclable bottles are embossed on the side with measurement markings to assist with mixing concentrates to the required ratio and can be screen printed for impactful branding or usage instructions.
PET medical spacer
Covid-19 has presented some unexpected opportunities. Karl Lambrecht, technical director explains, “Polyoak relished the chance to innovate outside of our usual field of expertise. We partnered with the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town to bridge the gap between expensive commercial asthma spacers and the need in low income communities, by creating a custom blow-mould base with an indentation in the shape of an asthma pump nozzle.”
Prof Michael Levin, Head of Allergy at Red Cross adds, “During production when the bottle is blown and the plastic is still soft, air is blasted into the bottle base which creates the inhaler-ize extrusion. So, after that, the only small manual task is to slice off the end of the indentation leaving a perfect-fit attachment hole for the inhaler.”
Polyoak’s PET Medical Spacer is recognised by the Western Cape Government’s Social Development Department, and has also been taken on by all major government hospitals and clinics in the Western Cape, Gauteng and KZN regions. It is fully recyclable.
Face shields
Face shields are an effective tool to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, but they are often extremely uncomfortable to wear.
Polyoak’s engineers set about producing a new face shield that is ergonomically designed for comfort, lightweight and spacious enough to accommodate goggles or spectacles to be worn underneath. These fully-recyclable shields provide secure and comfortable personal protection.
Supporting recycling and communities through Covid-19
As manufacturers of fully-recyclable packaging that is widely recycled, Polyoak is extremely concerned about the almost 90,000 informal waste reclaimers who have been unable to earn a living during the lockdown.
As the economy is very slow to get started, the entire recycling industry is at risk. As an urgent intervention, Polyoak donated nearly R1m to The Waste Pickers organisation to provide electronic food vouchers for around 5,000 registered collectors across KZN and Free State provinces to help feed their families.
The lockdown has also destroyed income earning opportunities for those living hand-to-mouth on what they earn each day as car guards and informal traders. To assist in KZN, Polyoak partnered with the Umgeni Relief Network to help distribute 10,000 food parcels consisting of maize, samp, beans, toilet paper, sugar, salt and cooking oil.
Derek Ridgard, Regional Director for Polyoak KZN explains, “Local community support is extremely important at this difficult time. This partnership has helped to feed nearly 40,000 needy residents from the Shivabazali informal settlement near Howick.”
Jeremy Mackintosh adds, “The remarkable thing about the lockdown, has been the response of our Polyoak people in upholding safety protocols, but also in the way they have donated portions of their personal earnings to support those in need.”
Polyoak and its people have invested over R5m rand in community initiatives to provide much-needed Covid-19 support across South Africa through the Solidarity Fund, Waste Pickers and Gift of the Givers, with some regional projects too.
The Solidarity Fund, formed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, is supporting vulnerable South Africans during the Covid-19 Pandemic, through education and awareness and by providing personal protective equipment (PPE). Gift of the Givers is helping to supply essential medical equipment and consumables to the institutions in urgent need, including Covid-19 test kits.
In the Western Cape, Polyoak partnered mainly with the Peninsula School Feeding Association and Philisa Abafazi Bethu. The latter focuses on protecting and empowering women and children on the Cape Flats. Polyoak’s partnership with Philisa helped to provide over 65,000 nutritious meals to abused women and children in Lavender Hill and surrounding communities.
When schools closed for the lockdown, Polyoak assisted the Peninsula School Feeding Association (PSFA) with emergency distribution of 13,000 food parcels to needy households across Cape Town including vulnerable communities in the Southern, Northern, Eastern and Central Metropole districts as well as Saldanha, Vredendal, Beaufort West and Oudtshoorn.
Most of the parcels were delivered door-to-door by volunteers to reach the most vulnerable homes with unemployed parents, child-headed households and elderly who supported grandchildren.
When the lockdown was extended, the Western Cape Education Department granted essential permits for 108 schools, enabling PSFA to continue distributing food parcels containing enough ingredients to provide a family of five with meals for a week.
Alan Caldwell, Regional Director says, “Polyoak is humbled by the exemplary efforts of PSFA, which to date has distributed more than 53,000 food parcels. We are proud to be able to support this initiative which benefited over 265,000 people in our Cape region.”
In Gauteng, Polyoak partnered with ACFS, a community education and feeding scheme that supports under-resourced townships and communities of Soweto, Alexandra, Thembisa and Tsakane.
Regional Director, Graham Haird explains, “The economic impact of the Covid lockdown has worsened the plight for those already struggling under the burden of poverty and malnutrition. Polyoak is honoured to partner with these incredible local organisations to help provide essential nutrition for needy beneficiaries.”
Polyoak Group MD, Jeremy Mackintosh concludes, “We salute our customers and suppliers that choose to partner with us, and we are optimistic that things will improve.
“We remain committed to not letting our customers or our country down. We are already supporting the opening up of businesses with our reliable service and high-quality packaging, delivered in a way that keeps our people and communities safe.”
Source: Polyoak Packaging Group