Germany’s Nölken Hygiene Products is increasing its sustainability profile by incorporating recyclable composite packaging in wet wipes. The project is the result of years of development efforts relating to eco-friendly products and packaging.
Plastic’s ability to remain stable, its compatabiity with many ingredients and its ability to retain moisture make it an optimal material for packaging liquid-based and other sensitive materials.
Nölken first began offering its customers a recyclable composite film as a packaging variant in 2007. In 2010, the composite film was optimized through the use of post-industrial recycled materials (PIR), and today, 90% of composite films used consist of recyclable composite films. This material has recently been improved with the incorporation of a pure-grade material with an extremly high recycling quality.
Currently, recycling rates in Europe are just 30% but new laws, which went into effect in Germany in Janaury 2019 aim to increase recycling rates for packaging waste
"Plastics are not bad per se, but they need recyclable material, reduced material consumption and better opportunities for recycling,” says Daniel Kesseler, head of product development and product management at Nölken. “For this reason, the manufacturer of cosmetic and cleaning products has set itself the goal of using exclusively recyclable composite film packaging for private labels and customer projects by the end of 2020. With our long-term endeavor, we are moving away from linear economic systems, where only waste is generated at the end of user.”