Sustainability trend

Recycling for beds and cups

At the plant in Serbia, Greiner - here CEO Manfred Stanek - recycles bottles into flakes that can be reused.

(Bild: Greiner Recycling, Silvia Wittmann, Krone KREATIV)

Cups that separate themselves from their cardboard wrap; mattresses that can be recycled so that new foams can be made from them - Greiner is making a name for itself with innovations like these. Thanks to a plant in Serbia, the plastics and foam processor from Kremsmünster is now even producing its own recycled material.

Disposed mattresses were collected in order to extract polyol from them using a new recycling process, which is required for the production of new mattress foams - the BASF Group and Neveon, which belongs to Greiner AG, hailed this development in the fall of last year as a major step towards a circular economy. As the icing on the cake, the first 100 recycled mattresses were later delivered to a hotel in Ludwigshafen.

This is Greiner AG

Greiner, based in Kremsmünster, is one of the world's leading companies for plastic and foam solutions. Its customers are in the packaging, mattress, furniture and sports industries, and it also produces for the mobility, medical technology and pharmaceutical sectors. Greiner generated a turnover of 2.33 billion euros in the 2022 financial year and employed over 11,600 people at 120 locations in 34 countries.

Waste becomes a valuable raw material
Aside from this, the plastics and foam processor, which operates from Kremsmünster, is also committed to sustainability. "The circular economy is the opposite of the throwaway society. It doesn't see waste as garbage, but as a valuable raw material. This is where our future lies," says Greiner CEO Manfred Stanek.

Product developers and material specialists are particularly in demand here: after all, articles must be designed in such a way that they can be collected, separated and recycled as easily as possible.

The recycling plant in Serbia.

(Bild: Greiner Recycling)

PET bottles and bottle caps are ground
Greiner has already joined the ranks of recyclers in the plastics sector: In September 2022, a plant was purchased in Nova Gajdobra/Serbia, where PET bottles and bottle caps are sorted, ground, washed and resold as flakes. "This helps us to think in cycles," says Peter Fessl, an employee of Greiner Packaging.

Incidentally, the Upper Austrians can use some of the recycled material themselves: Sauce and honey bottles are made from it in Wartberg an der Krems, and lids, cups and blister packs are produced at the site in Slusovice/Czech Republic.