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To round off the year, we once again present our most clicked articles of 2021. 2nd place: A Werner & Mertz video about chemical recycling.
Is chemical recycling an effective way to reduce the negative impact of plastic on the environment and climate? Werner & Mertz answers this question with a decisive „no“ and is launching an online campaign with an image film to explain its own approach to the circular economy. The Mainz-based company is likely to generate a lot of discussion in the industry.
The company sees no valid scientific evidence for the claims that chemical recycling would go far beyond the possibilities of the mechanical method. These are exclusively marketing promises from the, quote, „big players in the oil, plastics and parts of the packaging industry“.
Werner & Mertz sees itself as a company that stands for the successful implementation of mechanical recycling like no other and has set a world record in the use of high-quality recycled plastic from the Yellow Bag.
They want to hold out against these promises „by all means“.
An animated film that has just been released aims to summarise the differences between mechanical recycling and chemical processing „with unprecedented clarity“.
„Chemy“ is afraid of chemical treatment
„Chemy“ is a bright red shower gel bottle made of mixed plastic, which is bad-tempered and anxious in the film, because the poor guy is afraid of another trip to the chemical factory where he is to be „chemically recycled“.
He tells „Recy“ about his past experiences there: first of all, a kind of gruesome bath awaits him, in which terrible, polluting residues are left over. Chemy is also heated up, melted down and broken down into its basic materials - all in order to squeeze a small droplet of oil out of Chemy's remains at the end.
The film shows: Ten plastic bottles go into the recycling plant and after a large number of energy-intensive processing steps, at most one plastic bottle can come out again. In between, toxic by-products and emissions are produced.
Werner & Mertz also refers to a recent study by Deutsche Umwelthilfe and other environmental organisations, which focuses on the negative effects of the chemical recycling of plastics.
Large social media campaign accompanies the advert
The almost five-minute advert is being played out in a large-scale campaign on all common social media channels and is primarily intended to show end consumers that chemical processing does not deliver what it promises.
Source: Werner & Mertz
Werner & Mertz in packaging journal TV LIVE
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