Mondi, a supplier of packaging and paper, has improved the circularity of material flows with 95% of release liner production waste now used as secondary raw material for other industries.
Collaborating closely with companies along the value chain, Mondi has tackled the siliconised and coated paper waste produced at its release liner plants in Jülich, Germany, and Heerlen, Netherlands. It is now repulped and valorised as secondary raw material in a range of other applications.
Mondi Jülich and Mondi Heerlen entered a partnership with Veyzle, a Dutch company which recycles paper and plastics, and the Dutch site of the Wepa Group, knowledgeable in sustainable hygiene papers, two years ago.
Since then, Veyzle collects Mondi’s production waste from the two plants and sorts, shreds, and bails the different papers before transporting them to Wepa. Wepa has developed a repulping technology to valorise laminated and siliconised papers and uses them to create hygiene paper, such as toilet paper and paper towels. All three partners are located close together to keep transportation to a minimum.
In addition, Mondi is also working with Soprema, a supplier of waterproofing systems and insulation materials. The company uses Mondi’s release liner production waste as base material to manufacture cellulose wadding, an insulation solution that increases the energy efficiency of buildings. This partnership ensures that valuable resources are not lost and contributes to Soprema’s sustainability goals of increasing the proportion of recycled materials and avoiding waste.
Carlos Martinez Ezquerra, circular economy manager of flexible packaging at Mondi, stated, ‘At Mondi, we view waste as a loss in resources and have committed to eliminate waste from our production processes through our MAP2030 agenda.
‘We are very proud of the 95% reduction we achieved at both locations and now look forward to working with Celab, the leading industry initiative for the self-adhesive label value chain and building relationships with other partners to further improve the circular flow of materials also in our other release liner locations across Europe.’
