PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2019

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 04/19 www.petpla.net 28 Consistently pursuing sustainability One of the pioneers of using recyclable plastic packaging is the Werner & Mertz Group, headquartered in Mainz, Germany. The company is very well known for its “Marke Frosch” logo, which stands for thorough cleaning in the home, and safety for people and the environment. Since the 1980s the company has been working on all its different brands e.g. Erdal, Emsal or Tana to improve the packaging and ingredients to make them recyclable and sustainable. Recycling Special For Werner & Mertz sustainabil- ity is not just a buzzword: Alexander Schau, responsible for packaging development, explained how they have taken a holistic approach to sus- tainability encouraged by managing director Mr Reinhardt Schneider. Mr Schneider started in the 1980s with environmentally-friendly products and kept faith with them even in the 1990s when public awareness declined. His visionary perspective has been amply vindicated today with the success of its brands. Emphasising the company’s com- mitment to sustainability and environ- mentally friendly construction, the roof of the Werner & Mertz HQ is domi- nated by an array of wind turbines. The wind turbines power a photovol- taic system coupled with a geothermal generator which provides 20% more energy than is needed for the ongo- ing operation of the building. Just as impressive as this ground-breaking system is the power supplied by the solar roof panels which is used to charge two electric Smart cars, part of the company’s fleet. The building has received numerous awards. To optimise working processes a new plant has already been completed and will be officially opened in May 2019. This plant is constructed on a circular model, from container produc- tion, to filling, and on to packaging and finally the warehouse, and the circular design reduces space and communica- tion time. The result is an energy saving and a more cost-effective production. The plant will consist of several Alpla machines, amongst others, produc- ing 100% rPET preforms made of 20% post-consumer PET collected under the Yellow Bag system and 80% PET from the European bottle to bottle collection. The filling capacity is about 5-9,000pph each filling line. The percentage of rPET increases in the Frosch plastic packaging. In 2008 it was 30%, from 2014 on 100% rPET. The 500ml bottles of the Frosch products were made out of 24g pre- forms. The weight of the preform results from the long life and often used prod- ucts circle. The preforms have UV bar- rier protection, nothing more is needed. The design has remined pretty much the same over the years to promote consumer confidence in the reliability and quality of the product. Not only is the packaging environmentally-friendly, but also the formulations of the filling goods are continuously improved by using renewable primary products such a coconut fat, sunflower, olive or rape oil which are all bio-degradable. Beside the Frosch brand Werner & Mertz produces also for other brands. This is only a very small amount in the overall production, but it is important to carry out the use of recyclates in other markets sections. The key market for Werner & Mertz is Central Europe; some of their production goes to China and Japan. In total Werner & Mertz employs 1,072 staff. The awarded HQ of Werner & Mertz in Mainz, Germany One of the newest products in the market is a toilet deodoriser. The basket of this toilet freshener is cur- rently made of 100% used plastic from PET bottles. In a joint project with The Green Dot and the affili- ated companies Dannemann Global Extrusion and Berner Kunststofftech- nik Werner & Mertz is developing a process to produce the basket from recycled PET trays obtained from the Yellow Bag household waste collec- tion system. With this material source is the cleaning products manufacturer meeting its self-imposed standard of putting as much previously untapped material from the Yellow Bag as pos- sible into its packaging. By using PET tray material, a closed-loop system is generated. www.werner-mertz.de by Heike Fischer Mr Alexander Schau, responsible for packaging development demonstrated the Frosch rPET bottle. State-of-the-art filling and packaging machinery at the new plant of Werner & Mertz