Enters the business of reprocessing recyclable material
Greiner Packaging has broadened its business portfolio by acquiring Alwag, a Serbia-based producer of PET flakes. The purchase of Alwag, which will be renamed Greiner Recycling, sees Greiner grow its business model by entering the business of reprocessing recyclable materials.
The acquisition of Alwag is a direct reflection of Greiner Packaging’s exhaustive efforts to boost sustainability. In purchasing the PET flake producer, Greiner Packaging is pushing ahead with the expansion drive it has embarked on in recent years as well as resolutely pursuing its extensive circular economy goals. After the takeover, Greiner Packaging has three locations in Serbia: one recycling company and two manufacturing bases.
One of Greiner Packaging’s declared objectives is to maximize the use of recycled material when manufacturing its products. As the first recycling company in the group, Greiner Recycling d.o.o. will help to secure the material streams that will later be converted by Greiner Packaging.
This sustainable form of backward integration will ensure a dependable supply of raw materials that are essential to Greiner Packaging continuing to offer customers the reliability they are accustomed to going forward. It is also key to expanding recycling as an integral part of the company’s business model.
“ PET is currently the only mechanically recycled material that can be used for food applications. We are strong believers in the potential of PET and, by expanding our expertise, we are actively committed to using this material effectively. As we work toward our sustainability goals, which we pursue consistently through all the business decisions we make, we naturally pay special attention to the possible creation of other r-PET streams in addition to the bottle-to-bottle stream. That would mean that an old PET cup could become a new PET cup in the future, ” explained Manfred Stanek, CEO of Greiner Packaging.
Alwag supplies its material to customers throughout Europe. Following consultations with these valued partners and a planned expansion of recycling capacity at the site, the flakes will gradually become available for Greiner Packaging’s applications and will be incorporated into its packaging solutions. This means that existing Alwag customers will continue to benefit from a reliable supply of their usual quantities of recycled material.
To incorporate recycled PET into packaging, the PET flakes are extruded and then thermoformed. In the future, injection molding applications will also be considered.
“ The recycling of PET packaging and bottles is a project we began 10 years ago as pioneers in Serbia. It has always been our ultimate goal to produce an end product made entirely of recycled PET material that can then be converted. This new Alwag product is now no longer being developed by us, but by new owners whom we have carefully selected and have full confidence in. We are convinced that our vision will be successfully pursued thanks to the new owners, their commitment to the Nova Gajdobra site, and the additional investments in downstream technological processes. This step makes sense for everyone involved and will take the company’s success to even greater heights in the future,” said Stojan Dangubić, former director of Alwag and executive director of Aling-Conel.
Greiner Packaging is known for the diversity of its packaging production and decoration services as well as for processing an extensive array of materials. Greiner Packaging is broadening its offering through vertical integration. The in-depth knowledge it is obtaining in the recycling sector will further strengthen the packaging specialists’ position as experts and sustainability pioneers in the international market.
As an internationally successful packaging producer, Greiner Packaging is committed to delivering innovation for a circular world – one where the same resources can be used again and again. The company takes a holistic approach to achieve this, rooted in its guiding principle: reduce, reuse, and recycle.
For example, Greiner Packaging will not rely solely on r-PET in the future – it will also forge ahead with initiatives to increase the use of r-PP and r-PS, recognizing that it is not necessarily a case of favoring a certain material. Rather, the aim is to provide a sustainable material solution that is perfectly tailored to the customer.
The Covid-19 pandemic led to the country-wide lockdown on 25 March 2020. It will be two years tomorrow as I write this. What have we learned in this time? Maybe the meaning of resilience since small companies like us have had to rely on our resources and the forbearance of our employees as we have struggled to produce our trade platforms.
The print and packaging industries have been fortunate, although the commercial printing industry is still to recover. We have learned more about the digital transformation that affects commercial printing and packaging. Ultimately digital will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future.
Web analytics show that we now have readership in North America and Europe amongst the 90 countries where our five platforms reach. Our traffic which more than doubled in 2020, has at times gone up by another 50% in 2021. And advertising which had fallen to pieces in 2020 and 2021, has started its return since January 2022.
As the economy approaches real growth with unevenness and shortages a given, we are looking forward to the PrintPack India exhibition in Greater Noida. We are again appointed to produce the Show Daily on all five days of the show from 26 to 30 May 2022.
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