AMSTERDAM, 11 DECEMBER 2018. Under the watchful eye of colleagues and the press, a unique partnership between JMT, plastic fishing company Plastic Whale and furniture manufacturer Vepa was signed. With a powerful network in Europe, JMT will provide distribution and awareness of the Plastic Whale Circular Furniture line, which was launched in February.
As a market leader in rental furniture, JMT is happy to contribute to sustainable entrepreneurship within the livecomm industry. With Corporate Social Responsibility as paramount, JMT made use of the unique opportunity to become ‘Launching Partner’ of Plastic Whale Circular Furniture. Plastic Whale, established in Amsterdam and founded by Marius Smit, has created a unique furniture concept in cooperation with Vepa: design furniture made from recycled plastic, collected from the canals of Amsterdam.
Stop talking. Let’s start doing!
This is the motto that Plastic Whale develops its activities under. “We create economic value from plastic waste with the involvement of as many people as possible,” says Smit. “Every year we fish for plastic in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, together with thousands of people. From these plastics, we have already built eleven design sloops. We can make an even greater impact with office furniture. “The cleaned plastic may no longer be called waste.”, Janwillem de Kam from ‘furniture factory’ Vepa says: “It is a real raw material that fits the production process of the furniture really well. By making design furniture, we remove this plastic from the chain for a long time. We add value and ensure that form and function match the wishes of our customers.”
Big impact
Janwillem de Kam sees JMT as a Launching Partner a powerful party to convey both the message and the furniture through the rental channel of JMT to the attention of a large audience. “It starts with the boardroom table and chairs of our ‘signature collection’, but we expect this cooperation to have a snowball effect.”
The Plastic Whale and Vepa collection will take off in the course of 2019. The items that are suitable for the rental will become part of the permanent collection of JMT and will be offered through JMT offices in The Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, France and Germany. In addition to the design, properties such as size, weight and, for example, stackability are important in the consideration. A sustainably produced piece of furniture is only really sustainable when it is rented out, if it is also sustainable to transport. “In this way, contributing to sustainability can be contagious, and this certainly applies to our fellow branches, but we also count on our customers to embrace the idea and tackle the plastic soup together with us!”, says Jean-Pierre Brouwers, managing director rental furniture JMT.
NOTE FOR EDITORS
For more information about JMT and this cooperation, please contact Kristel van der Pol.
T: +31 (0) 6 83917583
E: [email protected]
For more information about Plastic Whale Circular Furniture, please contact Pauline de Boer.
T: +31 (0) 6 30236009
E: [email protected]
About the plastic waste problem
The plastic soup is a growing global problem. Plastic waste is polluting the world’s waters more and more, with all its consequences. No less than 80 percent of all waste that ends up in the ocean consists of plastic waste. This is more than 8 million tons annually. Animals in and around the water become entangled or suffocated in the plastic waste. In addition, plastic waste breaks into very small particles (“microplastics”) that are swallowed by fish and are absorbed by all kinds of organisms, such as mussels and oysters. So these particles end up in the food chain and we finally get it back on our plate.
About JMT
JMT was founded in 1982 and has provided the livecomm industry with more than 35 years of its materials and services. With 13 offices in 7 European countries, JMT is one of the largest providers of rental furniture and flooring for events, fairs and conferences in Europe. JMT is based in the Netherlands, England, Belgium, France, Spain, Switzerland and Germany and with a warehouse close to every major event location, customers can count on enormous flexibility and reliability.
JMT has around 120,000 furniture items, over 140,000m2 of carpet tiles and supplies many carpet, vinyl and laminate variations from stock. With more than 500 employees in Europe, they annually provide about 6000 events of furniture and floor coverings.
For more information, please visit www.jmt.nl
About Plastic Whale
Plastic Whale is the first professional plastic fishing company in the world. A social enterprise with a mission: to make the world’s waters plastic-free. We do this by creating social awareness for the problem, but mainly by taking action with as many people as possible and by fishing plastic. To date, Plastic Whale has fished more than 100,000 PET bottles from the water, which are then upcycled into high-quality products, including high-quality design locks and now also office furniture. We ultimately hope to go ‘out of business’ by achieving our mission. Overfishing is positive in our case.
For more information, please visit www.plasticwhale.com
About Vepa
Since the foundation of Vepa in 1971, we have developed into one of the most versatile office and project furniture manufacturers in the Netherlands. Versatile, because we make all our products 100% in our own factories in the Netherlands and thus realize both a wide range of products and customer-specific solutions. We are unique in this. Our state-of-the-art machinery also gives us the opportunity to constantly strive for new circular solutions, now with the Plastic Whale Circular Furniture collection. But that is not the only thing. It is mainly our 140 colleagues who make Vepa so special.
For more information, please visit vepa.nl
