The recyclate initiative - thinking even more in cycles

Werner & Mertz, the Mainz-based manufacturer of sustainable plasters, detergents and cleaning products, wants to use the Recyclate Initiative to steer the one-way street for the majority of PET packaging waste into a sensible, ecologically sustainable cycle. A new co-operation between partners from several sectors is making this possible.

Every year, around 1.5 million tonnes of plastic packaging waste is collected in German households, around ten percent of which is PET waste. A PET plastic drinks bottle becomes a PET plastic drinks bottle again. But what about the rest of the PET packaging that ends up in the yellow bag? What about washing-up liquid bottles or trays? The majority of the 90,000 tonnes of PET packaging waste is thermally recycled. As a consequence, this means a waste of crude oil and an increase in CO2 emissions.

Open to all

The idea of upcycling near-household PET waste in conjunction with partners in a unique recycling chain has met with a favourable response from industry partners and consumers. Werner & Mertz founded the Recyclate Initiative in 2012 with its Frosch brand and the partners Duales System Deutschland GmbH (DSD), the packaging manufacturer Alpla, the sorting technology specialist Unisensor, the REWE Group and NABU e. V.

Their Core idea PET waste from the Yellow Bag is to be used for the reproduction of PET bottles and thus follow the principle of a Maximum sustainability into account. The concept of the Recyclate Initiative is based on the components of high-tech innovation, Cradle2Cradle, upcycling, new processes/formulations, cooperation and the idea of open innovation, i.e. the idea of being „open to all“.

„The recipe for the PET material is new and had to meet the high utilisation requirements in terms of form, function and feel. The appearance, which remains unchanged at first glance, is the intended challenge and important for consumer acceptance. We filled 100,000 bottles with a total of 80 per cent recyclate and 20 per cent PET recyclate from the Dual System and put them on the market without a single customer complaint,“ explains Timothy Glaz, Manager Corporate Affairs at Werner & Mertz and spokesman for the Recyclate Initiative.

The idea was a hit: the Recyclate Initiative won major prizes in 2014, including the ECR Award for Efficient Consumer Response, the 2014 Special Prize of the German Packaging Award and, last but not least, the Federal Ecodesign Prize, which is awarded annually by the Federal Ministry for the Environment and the Federal Environment Agency to raise public awareness of the potential of ecodesign and promote innovation in this area.

„We want to expand the pilot project of this joint initiative into a nationwide idea that will establish itself in the minds of consumers. The challenge is to establish a cost-effective process chain,“ says Reinhard Schneider, Managing Partner of Werner & Mertz.

„In future, we want to exploit the potential of the 1.5 million tonnes of plastic waste from the Yellow Bag even more,“ says Reinhard Schneider, outlining the goals of the Recyclate Initiative. „We are also committed to making greater use of new technologies. Crude oil is a finite resource and so far there has been no vision of a effective material cycle."

The Recyclate Initiative also wants to show politicians new perspectives and, in the long term, amend the Waste Management Act in the interests of environmental protection. The aim is to use politics Economic-ecological incentives to reuse recyclate from secondary raw materials from the Yellow Bag for packaging.