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After two years as majority shareholder of C.R Plastic Products in Stratford, the Ice River Springs Water Company has taken full ownership of the Stratford-based recycled-plastic furniture manufacturer.
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Bottled water company takes ownership of C.R. Plastic Products
After two years as majority shareholder of C.R Plastic Products in Stratford, the Ice River Springs Water Company has taken full ownership of the Stratford-based recycled-plastic furniture manufacturer.
After two years as majority shareholder of C.R Plastic Products in Stratford, the Ice River Springs Water Company has taken full ownership of the Stratford-based recycled-plastic furniture manufacturer.
The bottled water company, which has its Canadian office in Shelburne, Ont., first purchased a minority share of the Stratford business back in 2014. A few years later, Ice River Springs co-owners Sandy and Jamie Gott decided to bump their ownership up to 51 per cent of the company, and over the coming days, the company is set to become the sole shareholder.
“Jamie and I started a recycling company as part of our Ice River group of companies in 2010,” Sandy Gott said, referring to Blue Mountain Plastics in Shelburne. “We actually buy 85 per cent of all the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic that’s collected in Ontario through the Blue Box program… In those bales comes all these bottle caps and we were trying to find the highest and best use for those so that we could make sure that they wouldn’t end up in landfill.”
One night, when the husband and wife owners of Ice River Springs were watching Dragons’ Den on CBC, they saw an investment pitch by Jamie Bailey and Trudie Wiseman, the couple who founded C.R Plastic in 1994.
“There’s synergies there. They’re also a husband and wife team that are founders of their company, and we were really interested in their story,” Sandy Gott said.
From a meeting that started out with the idea of potentially selling C.R Plastic some of their recycled bottle-cap material, the Gotts became more involved with the company over time, eventually taking on an ownership role.
“Their products are beautiful and it’s an extension of the recycling that we’re doing with Ice River – finding the highest and best use of the material,” Sandy Gott said.
“And we’re so aligned with working with governments and working with consumers to have people understand that recycling is definitely part of the solution in terms of plastics in landfills and plastics in oceans, and there’s value in these materials, and they can be reused over and over again.”
While Bailey and Wiseman will no longer be at the helm of the Stratford company, Sandy Gott said she and her husband are eager to keep the pair on in an advisory role. As for operation of the company, she said there will be no change to staff or how the company is run.
“The part of the company that attracted us is the one we’re continuing to expand on,” Sandy Gott said. “C.R.P was one one of the few companies that was asked to attend the G7 Oceans Summit in September in Halifax, and we exhibited the outdoor furniture there that’s made from the bottle cap and label materials.
“We want to continue to be part of the solution in terms of ocean plastic and plastics in landfill, and we want to continue to be able to tell our vertically integrated story – how you can take recycled plastics and turn them into this beautiful, sustainable, outdoor furniture.”
Though Bailey said he and his wife will miss seeing the people they worked with every day for the last 20 years, they are both confident Ice River Springs will continue to run the company based on values that align well with C.R Plastic’s.
“We have the same goals and the same mission,” Bailey said. “They’re an environmentally friendly company and… they’ve been with us for the last five years, so they know what they’re doing.”
Ice River Springs is the first bottled water manufacturer in North America that produces its bottles from 100 per cent recycled plastic sourced from an internal recycling company.
C.R Plastic operates out of a facility on Erie Street in Stratford’s south end. Since Ice River Springs has been involved with C.R Plastic, the companies have recycled approximately 14 million pounds of bottle caps and labels into outdoor furniture and chairs.