UPM-Biofore-Magazine-1-2017-ENG

TEXT HELEN MOSTER   PHOTOGRAPHY HENKEL, UPM

A packing machine attaches thousands of labels to the shampoo bottles at the Henkel Wassertrüdingen plant. More than 90% of the liner waste from label dispensing is recovered at the plant.

Philippe Blank

goals,” says Philippe Blank , Innovation & Sustainability Manager at Henkel. Henkel has ambitious sustainability targets aiming among others to achieve zero landfill waste and to reduce the carbon footprint of its production by 75% by 2030. The company additionally plans to reduce waste by 30% per tonne of product by 2020. “We are constantly

cosmetics labelling process is taken to the UPMPlattling mill, where silicone is separated from the waste. Following this deinking process, the new rawmaterial is ready for use in graphic paper production.

UPM and Henkel’s

Henkel is a global company that recycles label waste with exemplary efficiency. RafCycle ® , a project successfully piloted at one plant, will now be expanded.

cooperation is a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Label waste goes beyond the bin

Two-way cooperation Henkel’s business areas are adhesives, cosmetics products and washing and cleaning products. Founded in 1876, the company has around 50,000 employees and operates globally, serving both industrial customers and consumers. Henkel’s brands, such as Schwarzkopf, Persil and Pril, are well-known worldwide and are found in the homes of millions of consumers. In adhesives, the company is a global market leader. UPMand Henkel’s cooperation is a mutually beneficial arrangement. UPM Raflatac buys adhesives fromHenkel for its own label production, and Henkel uses UPMRaflatac’s label materials. Looking to expand their cooperation and reduce label stock waste, the two companies together launched the RafCycle programme at theWasser­ trüdingen plant. Henkel is the first company in the cosmetics and hygiene industry to participate in UPMRaflatac’s RafCycle recycling programme. “RafCycle has improved our cost structure and reduced waste at the plant, which supports our corporate

developing new concepts to promote sustainability, and hence we’re looking for recyclable alternatives for industrial packaging, for example. Our main goal is to reduce the amount of waste, and this is exactly where RafCycle comes in,” Blank says. A total of 455 tonnes of recyclable label stock waste is a huge amount in the label industry. This makes Henkel a significant customer for UPMRaflatac: over 5% of the waste going through the RafCycle programme comes from the plant in Bavaria. So far, only label stock waste from Henkel’s cosmetics products has been recycled, but the companies are aiming to deepen their cooperation. The partners are currently involved in negotiations concerning a number of production sites in Slovenia, in Hungary and in Düsseldorf, Germany. Having started with cosmetics, the companies are now looking to extend the pilot project into other areas, including washing and cleaning products as well as adhesives. 

T he circular economy is an integral part of everyday production in Bavaria, Germany. A packing machine attaches thousands of labels to the front and back of shampoo bottles at the Henkel Wassertrüdingen plant. As the labels come off the roll, the label release liner is fed onto a spool of its own next to the packaging line. When the supply of labels has been depleted and the operator replaces the roll, the used liner is deposited in a label stock waste container – a small step at the plant, but a giant leap in terms of recycling waste. Inmost cases, label stock waste ends up in a mixed waste

container and is then removed for further processing. Some of the waste may end up as rawmaterial for low value-added products, such as containerboard, and some for incineration. This is not the case at Wassertrüdingen. More than 90% of the label stock waste is recovered at the plant. In 2016, this amounted to 455 tonnes, or around 20 lorry loads. Recycling makes sense, because it would literally be a waste of money not to reuse the label stock waste. The label liner material is made from 100% high-quality pulp, and it can be reused in high value-added papers, print andmagazine papers. The label stock waste fromHenkel’s

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