HERMA Details Environmental Practices
- Published: May 09, 2017
FILDERSTADT, GERMANY | HERMA reports it has saved nearly 457 metric tons of CO2 again last year thanks to its recycling of discarded siliconized release liner. Its complete vehicle fleet is effectively carbon-neutral for the sixth year in succession. The company says the recycling process also gives rise to raw materials that it uses to produce 100% recycled label stock.
“We generate relatively little release liner as waste material because it is part of the adhesive material that we produce,” says Dr. Thomas Baumgärtner, HERMA managing director and head of the self-adhesive materials division.
Since 2010 HERMA has been supplying discarded release liner from production to the specialist recycling company Cycle4Green. With the help of Cycle4Green and the Austrian paper manufacturer Lenzing, this is turned into high quality label paper or release liner, both of which are reused by company. “We come pretty close to the ‘cradle to cradle principle,’” says Baumgärtner, “in other words a more or less closed material cycle.” HERMA wants to continue to support Cycle4Green's system in the future and hopes to encourage as many of its customers as possible to participate in the recycling initiative.” It is worth it – for the environment and for the companies that would otherwise have to pay for disposal of the release liner.”
Cycle4Green organizes the collection of discarded release liners, which companies would otherwise have to pay to dispose of, in a large number of European countries. Lenzing, a pioneer of eco-friendly paper manufacturing, then undertakes the recycling. Cycle4green collects a minimum quantity of 5 metric tons of material from wherever it is generated anywhere in Europe, without costs being incurred. A precondition is that the waste is sorted into different materials. Approximately 360,000 metric tons of siliconized release paper is generated every year throughout Europe, the bulk of which comes from within companies applying labels.
