When it comes to purchasing a septic tank for your property, you don’t want to make the wrong choice. This is a purchase that you will likely be committed to for at least a couple of decades, not to mention the fact that after it’s been buried underground, removal can be a difficult task to undertake simply because you changed your mind after the fact. Before you make your decision, it’s critical you get educated on the facts and weigh up the various pros and cons of your options. Plastic and concrete tend to be the most widely available septic tanks so we’ve laid out the advantages and disadvantages of both materials below to help make things easier:

Plastic Septic Tanks

The Pros

✓ Recyclable
At Global Tanks, we only ever create and mould our tanks out of recyclable plastic which means that you don’t have to worry about harmful landfill or expensive removal when it eventually comes time to dispose of your septic tank.

✓ Crack Resistant
Plastic is much more flexible than concrete, making it much less likely to crack or weather over time. This makes them completely watertight and prevents contamination or leaking.

✓ Easy Installation
As a lightweight material, choosing plastic makes it much easier to transport and install. This means that no heavy machinery is required and that plastic septic tanks can be placed in a bigger variety of locations or surroundings. More than this, easy installation means it’s quicker, requires fewer employees, and is cheaper to transport, all of which will bring down the cost.

✓ Cost
Plastic is easier to manufacture and mould, making plastic septic tanks cheaper to purchase than concrete tanks.

✓ Hygiene
Due to the fact that plastic tanks are more watertight and much less likely to let water in or out, they’re the more hygienic option. This massively reduces the chances of your wastewater leaking and contaminating your property while also helping to ensure no foreign water, liquids, or chemicals can get into your tank.

✓ Corrosion-Free
Plastic is completely resistant to corrosion or rust from water which means that it requires less maintenance and is much less likely to break or cause you trouble as it gets older.

The Cons

❌ More Easily Crushed
A plastic tank is more likely to become crushed when exposed to extreme pressure. However, this is rare and can easily be avoided through strategic placement; they are engineered to overcome this.

Concrete Septic Tanks

The Pros

✓ Remains rust-free
Concrete is made from natural materials and therefore non-toxic but also, for obvious reasons, it means the tank will not rust over the long-term.

The Cons

❌ Higher Carbon Emissions During Production
As the second most used material in the world after water, concrete is responsible for a significant negative contribution to the environment. The manufacturing of concrete generates roughly 4.5% of the world’s human-induced carbon dioxide emissions.

❌ Much Heavier
As concrete is a lot heavier than plastic, it’s harder to install a concrete septic tank. The process will likely be a lot longer, more expensive, and require machinery.

❌ Easily Cracked
Concrete is more brittle than plastic which means that as the years go on, cracks are likely to appear which could lead to expensive repairs, contamination to your property, foul smells, and environmental health issues.

❌ Easily Corroded
Concrete is much more prone to corrosion from water which isn’t ideal as it will be often exposed to water. Serious corrosion is likely to compromise the integrity of the entire tank.

❌ Difficult to Repair
Not only are concrete tanks more likely to crack or break but when they do, the repair process is far more difficult and disruptive than that of a plastic septic tank.

At Global Tanks, our business is all about innovating for the future. We are confident that concrete will soon become a thing of the past and that our recyclable plastic tanks are the way forward. We have a range of plastic septic tanks, water storage tanks, transportable tanks and we are also experts in Custom Rotomoulding. To learn more about our products or services, get in touch with one of our friendly team members today!

Most pastures rely on weather conditions such as temperature, moisture and sunlight for growth. As the temperature drops during winter, the pasture growth rate also drops substantially which often results in a lack of feed for the livestock on a farm. This stage is commonly referred to as the ‘winter feed gap’. Most crops will germinate and create a larger amount of biomass more quickly than a pasture and so this biomass can be used as a food source while the crop plants remain vegetative.

What are the Benefits of Grazing Crops?

✓ Grazing crops can help to drastically boost the availability of feed during the gap that takes place during autumn and winter and will help to avoid the negative impacts of lower temperatures and disease.

✓ Many grazing crops, like cereals and canola, can still produce a very acceptable yield after being used for grazing by livestock.

✓ Reduce the cost of supplementary feeding

✓ In some cases, using grazing crops during the winter feed gap has been proven to increase to overall gross margins of a farm or livestock enterprise

✓ Pasture paddocks will excel as removing the livestock from them will give them the chance to germinate and grow without being used for grazing

✓ The reduction of the crop biomass that occurs as a result of grazing means that more groundwater is reserved.

How to Manage Grazing

The grazing process must be carefully managed in order to ensure your livestock is well fed and you still get a decent yield from the crops. Below are some of the best ways to do that:

✓ Don’t introduce cattle to the grazing crops on an empty stomach. Instead, give them some hay to graze on beforehand which will prevent them from overgrazing and ruining your potential yield.

✓ Give your livestock calcium, salt and magnesium supplementation during the period that they are grazing crops in order to maintain their nutrient levels.

✓ You must be aware that livestock will require time to adapt to their new source of feed and may not be able to use it effectively straight away.

✓ We recommend that you always sow your crops early in the season to allow for maximum biomass and growth before grazing begins. It’s crucial that you don’t introduce stock to crops before they’ve become securely anchored in the ground.

✓ Make sure your stocking rates are thoroughly calculated to achieve even grazing, recovery and crop maturation.

✓ It’s important that flowering happens at the right time. Flowering can be pushed back by grazing which is a bonus since it won’t happen during the lowest temperatures of the year. However, if you delay flowering too much, your grain fill may be pushed back into a period of high temperatures which will affect the yield.

At Global Tanks, our team have been living in Rural Queensland our whole lives, so we know exactly how to manage an agricultural lifestyle and business. We have a huge range of products from water storage tanks to fertilizer tanks, that are guaranteed to get the job done and make your life easier. Head to our website to learn more about the products that we manufacture or get in touch with us today and chat to one of our friendly team members!

It isn’t always an easy task when it comes to designing a brand new product for rotomoulding, however, when you follow the right process it becomes much more straightforward. At Global Rotomoulding, we have over 30 years of experience in moulding and manufacturing rotomoulded products, so it’s safe to say that we know a thing or two about what does and doesn’t work. When you have the right manufacturing team and you follow these crucial steps, you’re guaranteed to achieve your desired results:

Consider your End Goal

The very first step to designing a great product is considering your ‘why’- why are you creating this product? What problems will it solve? Often our customers come to us because they want to solve a problem with existing products on the market or the existing product they’re using. The good news is that rotomoulding can solve a lot of problems because the plastic used is stronger as well as lighter than metal and is cheaper to manufacture.

Improve Efficiency

The new product that you are designing and manufacturing should always boost efficiency for your customers in one way or another. When it comes to your customers and their business, time is money, so your product should always be designed with the aim of saving your customers time and helping them to do their job more efficiently.

Create a CAD Prototype and seek industry expert advice.

When you’ve created a clear and effective design that will solve the problems you’ve outlined. You need to work through your design process this may include producing scale 3d printed products. We recommend you partner with our Industrial designer who is the leading designer for rotomolded products in Australia. This is the most effective way of ensuring that your product can be manufactured. The creation of moulds is expensive, it is best to ensure your design is well thought through for the intended application, as well as the product can be manufactured.

Collaborate With the Right Team

When designing a product for rotomoulding, it’s crucial that you have the best expertise, facilities and level of support possible. The manufacturing team that you opt to partner with is the factor that has the biggest potential to make or break your entire design.

At Global Rotomoulding, we offer a fully comprehensive service and we’re confident that you won’t find a more capable team of rotomoulding experts anywhere else. Below are some of the highlights of the services that we offer and that you should always look for in a manufacturing partner:

• Support from Concept to Final Product: At Global Rotomoudling, we help and advise you through every step of the process from start to finish. We work with Australia’s leading industrial designer for rotomolded products. We will help transform your vision into a fully functioning, rotomoulded product in front of you.
• We use the best tools: When it comes to rotomoulding, the magic is in the moulds themselves. The fabrication of the moulds is the biggest and most important investment you can make in the rotomoulding process and at Global Tanks, we use only the best quality moulds.
• The Perfect Material: At Global Tanks, we use polyethylene for rotomoulding which is by far the most effective material available. Polyethylene has the ability to remain stable during the extensive heating process, is highly durable, weather-resistant, and always results in uniform thickness.
• Think outside the box: If you can dream it up, we’ll always find a way to rotomould it. In fact, we specialise in custom rotomoulding and products that are a little bit out of the ordinary, and pride ourselves on our ability to create and manufacture designs that are completely customised to the customer’s needs.

At Global Tanks, we credit our success to the skills and talent of our amazing team who are always ready to challenge conventional practices. If you have a product in mind that you would like to design and manufacture, get in touch with us today and we guarantee we’ll do everything possible to make your vision a reality!