“We are proud to be REDcert²-certified. The certification allows us to give our customers – and consumers, too – a credible promise that we are using PCR materials”, says director Henrik Großekämper with visible joy. This contribution to a transparent, functioning circular economy guarantees that the company is well-prepared for future challenges, such as legal recycling quotas and plastics taxes in other EU countries.
A great example of a sustainable product made by groku Kunststoffe is the 12.5 l bucket for the company’s customer DAW SE, based in the town of Ober-Ramstadt. The container for paint has a PCR material content of 70 %, the source of which is PP waste collected through household waste recycling. This is clearly visible from its grey colour. Henrik Großekämper explains: “We purchase granulated PCR material exclusively from processing companies that are EUCertPlast and ISCC+-certified. Then we manufacture our products by mixing the recycled material with new material at different component ratios, depending on our customers’ requirements.” A mass balance kept by groku Kunststoffe in its ERP system to ensure full traceability of all raw materials used contains all input and output material flows and shows precisely which percentage of recycled material was used for each final product. This process was successfully audited by TÜV NORD CERT GmbH, an approved certification body for the REDcert² chemicals system. “This makes us the first manufacturer of plastic packaging items with a REDcert² certificate”, highlights the director with pride and adds: “When we indicate a percentage of recycled material contained in one of our packaging products, this percentage is guaranteed and verifiable.“ In the case of the 12.5 l container for DAW SE, using recycled material instead of exclusively new material has led to a reduction in CO2 by 0.4 kg per container – a significant contribution to preserving resources and protecting the climate.
The container features an attractive design despite the grey base colour, thanks to in-mould labelling, and was developed with and for the customer DAW SE, who has also had its binding agents REDcert²-certified. Renowned throughout Europe, this supplier of paints and varnishes, who owns, among other things, the brand Caparol with its recognisable rainbow-coloured elephant logo, committed itself to greater sustainability over ten years ago. Aside from producing its paints and varnishes in a climate-neutral process, the company also uses sustainable packaging. The Indeko-plus container produced by groku Kunststoffe GmbH from 70 % recycled material perfectly meets the demand for a sustainable and efficient packaging product. “Based on the property profile requested by our customer, we develop recipes for our packaging products that may have a PCR content of up to 100 %”, Henrik Großekämper explains. groku Kunststoffe produces approximately 220 million packaging items, containers and lids, every year, primarily for manufacturers of paints and building protective agents as well as manufacturers of adhesives, dry asphalt or bitumen and other bulk goods in the non-food segment. With around 150 employees, the injection-moulding company produces not just 1-30 l containers for the non-food segment, but also containers of different shapes and sizes for the food sector, giving it a huge range of experience in the production of sustainable plastic products across Europe.