Making sustainability visible: With our new compaction system, we transform daily foam waste into valuable recycled blocks. The white residues are turned into raw materials that are processed into new PE foam and returned to our production line. This closes the loop—in an economically sensible and ecologically effective way.
From waste product to recyclable material – in the video
Every working day, Leidel & Kracht processes around three tons of (un)cross-linked PE foam. The production-related residues can be returned almost in their entirety to manufacturers of technical foams. To this end, L&K has established two material flows so that "waste for incineration" can be turned into high-quality recyclable materials for the production of new foams. In a compaction system, the loose pieces of foam are turned into handy blocks that can be used directly for the production of non-crosslinked PE. This is true recycling. In the second process, the cross-linked foam pieces are processed into flakes of a specific size. These flakes are used to create a high-quality product at Schmitzfoam.
The path is clear: our suppliers extract new foam from the flakes, which is then used again in our products. In this way, we are not only contributing to the conservation of resources, but also setting an example for the circular economy in the packaging industry.
"Closing the loop—that is our goal. With every ton of compacted waste, we get closer to this goal," explains Sustainability Manager Janosch Bartsch. We are documenting this process in a short video that illustrates the journey of the white blocks – from compaction to reuse.
