German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a government Q&A at the Bundestag this year: ‘I am committed to reducing the use of plastics. Germany can and should lead by example here, although we have already made a great contribution through our recycling mechanisms.’

Closed-cycle management is the order of the day because the age of plastic downcycling is over. We closed the material loop for plastics several years ago with Interseroh, a subsidiary of the ALBA Group. We achieved this with the help of our Recycled-Resource process, which our scientists are continually developing in our own competence centre in Maribor. New options are available to the industry as well. Last year Interseroh began offering its ‘Made for Recycling’ service to manufacturers, a scientifically sound method for making packaging more recycling-friendly.

Together with the Fraunhofer Institute UMSICHT, we are assessing in the current study ‘resources SAVED by recycling’ the conservation of resources and greenhouse gas reduction through our recycling activities in comparison to primary production. Through the recirculation of around 4.1 million tonnes of recyclable materials, we achieved a total saving of approximately 30.2 million tonnes of primary resources in 2017 as well as almost 4.1 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.

Learn more about the study