October 22, 2007 - New Pentamaster venture to be big contributor
PENTAMASTER Corp Bhd's new business venture, which supplies glove-recycling equipment for the latex and plastic glove industry, is expected to be a major contributor to the group's revenue next year.
Group executive chairman C.B. Chuah told StarBiz that the group had recently secured a contract to deliver 300 units of glove-recycling equipment for EcoGlove Ltd, a reusable glove manufacturer based in Hong Kong.
The glove-recycling equipment uses steam and enzyme chemicals to clean and sterilise latex and plastic medical gloves for reuse.
It also checks all the gloves for pinholes – rejecting those that are found with such defects.
The EcoGlove brand gloves are made from a special latex material, derived from Malaysian rubber, that allows them to be recycled.
Each unit of equipment can recycle up to 600,000 pieces of latex and plastic reusable gloves monthly.
“The 300 units, to be delivered in 2008, will generate US$30mil for the group with each unit sold for about US$100,000,” Chuah said.
He pointed out that the end users of such equipment were mainly hospitals and health clinics.
“They can reduce their operational costs by at least 30% using the glove-recycling equipment to recycle reusable gloves.
“We expect the business to generate about 30% of the group's revenue in 2008,” he said.
Chuah said over the next five years, there was a need for 950 glove-recycling equipment, as reusable gloves were becoming increasingly popular.
“There are about 132 billion pieces of single-use latex and plastic gloves consumed annually worldwide. This translates to about 132 million tonnes of waste yearly, creating enormous environmental problems.
“This is why hospitals and health clinics are turning to reusable gloves such as those produced by EcoGlove,” he said.
Meanwhile, EcoGlove chairman Patrick Hampe said the EcoGlove brand reusable gloves could capture at least 4% of the global glove market in five years.
“This translates to about six to seven billion pieces of reusable gloves, which will require some 950 glove-recycling equipment to recycle them for reuse,” he said.
Hampe said EcoGlove reusable gloves were printed with a two-dimensional bar code matrix that allowed the individual glove to be tracked to its manufacturer, should problems arise from the recycling process.
“Before the year ends, EcoGlove will release some one million pieces of gloves to the European market.”
For More information:
EcoGlove Limited: +852 8120 7555 / www.ecoglove.com
StarBiz: external link