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Nordenia concentrating on product, process, and technology

NORDENIA INTERNATIONAL AG, an international manufacturer of flexible packaging, technical films, and product components, has concentrated its research and development activities in NORDENIA TECHNOLOGIES GmbH. The R&D center with a technical development center and analytics department has found its new home on around 1,400 square meters in a three-story massive building, which is made of reinforced concrete with a metal cladding. In total, more than five million euros were invested. Ralph Landwehr emphasized that the Group’s research and development company NORDENIA TECHNOLOGIES GmbH will focus more on product, process, and technology developments in the future so that it can also increasingly open up new areas of use in addition to the further development of product categories available today, such as labeling films, surface protection films, hygiene components, and flexible packaging for the consumer goods industry. Areas such as Application Technology and Engineering are each integrated in the respective operative companies. This means that the research and development team can focus on its core business. Currently, 27 employees work for NORDENIA TECHNOLOGIES GmbH. Dr. Herbert Bader has been Development Manager since 2001.

In the 2007 financial year, NORDENIA generated a turnover of €680 million and is anticipating an increase in turnover of more than ten percent for the current financial year. The result in the 2008 financial year will be below that of 2007. Landwehr named in particular the increased costs for raw materials, energy, and transport as the reason for this. For instance, the prices for polymers have increased on average by 25 percent in the first seven months of this year.

Due to the forecasted lower global economic growth in this year and the next, Landwehr is anticipating reduced growth for the NORDENIA Group. According to him, NORDENIA will also be focusing on utilizing cost-savings potential, in particular in the areas of raw materials, energy, and transport, in addition to exploiting its production capacities. Production processes are also to be optimized and quality further enhanced.

For 2008, the investment volume of the NORDENIA Group is around €47 million. Investments are made in particular in the German sites in Gronau and Steinfeld, as well as in Russia, Poland, and America. “We are thus prepared to strengthen our market leader position in the area of flexible packaging and hygiene components even further,” emphasized Landwehr.

Sustainability Firmly Anchored in the Strategy

Ralph Landwehr and Dr. Herbert Bader also addressed the topic of “sustainability”. “Sustainable economic management and the closely associated development are part of our strategy. In the corporate value “Global“, explicit reference is made to the responsible treatment of our environment,” explained Landwehr. For years, NORDENIA has been actively campaigning for the conscious and sustainable handling of the available resources.

Landwehr emphasized that NORDENIA has always incorporated environmental protection in its strategy in a practice-oriented manner. He reminded of the start of the first film recycling facility in 1970. In 1990, the first incinerating device for cleaning solvent-polluted exhaust air was put into operation, which uses the solvent-polluted exhaust air that is produced during the manufacture of film packaging as fuel. In 1992, NORDENIA started up its first block-type heat and power plant. The NORDENIA Extraction Cleaning (NOREC) recycling facility began operating in 1997. The quality of the film waste that is treated with the facility, for which NORDENIA had developed a special cleaning and extraction process, comes close to that of the primary raw materials. The effectiveness of the environmental performance is thus continuously being optimized in a targeted manner.

NORDENIA is showing considerable progress in many product categories. The use of materials has been considerably reduced in many segments while the highest quality requirements have been met exceptionally. In addition, NORDENIA is attaching greater importance to optimized packaging sizes. In the course of the latest technological developments, the film converter today opts more for system solutions for technical and packaging applications, including considering recycled materials and the inclusion of renewable raw materials.

In the area of sustainability, NORDENIA today focused, among other things, on realizing the use of bioplastics so that no compromises be made with regard to the stipulated quality and that through the combination of available bioplastics the functionality and optics of comparable, oil based standard plastic composites are achieved. In Dr. Herbert Bader’s opinion, this is realized best by the gradual introduction of bioplastics, which means not converting film structures entirely but first aiming for an initial milestone via the introduction of up to 30 percent of bioplastics and preparing the next steps at the same time.

Key Words: Renewable Raw Materials

Over the past few years, increasing attention has been paid to bioplastics due to a strong increase in oil prices and increasing environmental awareness. Whereas in the past they were seen as a solution to the increasing amount of packaging waste thanks to their biodegradability, e.g. through composting, it has shown that this type of waste disposal is only worthwhile when the designated use incorporates this method of disposal almost as a matter of course, e.g. for films in the agricultural sector or as waste bags for compostable household waste. In all other cases, biodegradability has not prevailed as an additional criterion on its own.

In the last few years, the further development of this category of raw materials has primarily resulted in the offering of another platform based on renewable raw materials, in addition to the established oil based platform. The main advantage of the bioplastics that are produced from renewable resources lies in their CO₂ balance over their life cycle. Raw materials such as corn, grain, potatoes, or wood use up the same quantity of CO₂ while they are growing as they release again when the plastic degrades or is used for energetic purposes. CO₂ is produced only in the manufacturing and transport processes. The biodegradability plays a subordinate role insofar as it does not offer any functional benefits (such as with agricultural/mulch film or biodegradable waste bags) as biodegradability itself does not offer any advantages with regard to CO₂ or energy balances.

Today, bioplastics are therefore defined by both their method of disposal and the raw material they are based on as biodegradable plastics from renewable or fossil raw materials, or as plastics from renewable raw materials for biodegradable or non-biodegradable products.

Biopolymers for film applications already cover features today that make it possible to replace standard plastics such as PE, PP, or PET in many applications. In addition, there is a whole number of other bioplastics that are still in the development stage. In future, some plastics manufacturers intend to offer standard plastics that are produced from renewable raw materials. For instance PE, PE, PP, PET, and PA are to become available as bioplastics in the near future.