Werner & Mertz
Cyclable Flexible Packaging Pouch now available in retail markets in Germany.
The first fully recyclable stand-up pouch, developed for Frosch through a collaborative effort, is now available in German retail, reducing material use by 70% and supporting a circular economy.
Frosch: Cyclable Flexible Packaging Pouch
The first completely recyclable stand-up pouch, which won in the Sustainability category, is now on retail shelves. Soon the entire pouch portfolio for the Frosch brand will be converted to the new packaging.The innovation challenge: To develop a fully recyclable, all-polyethylene, stand-up pouch for the German cleaning brand „Frosch“. It took some time and quite some effort, but the result is a real milestone for the packaging industry. The resulting flexible pouch uses 70 % less material than its rigid bottle counterpart and is designed for a closed loop circular economy. The patented pioneering design overcomes many shortcomings of the recycling process and is the result of a joint consortium effort which started in 2015 by Werner & Mertz (Frosch), Mondi, EPEA Switzerland (Cradle to Cradle®), Der Grüne Punkt – Duales System Deutschland and Institut cyclos-HTP.
“Sustainable development is not a “plug-and-play” exercise. Everyone must depart from the status quo and accept that risk is a necessary condition for serious technological advancement. If you want to develop something new, you have to be willing to put in hard work, to take the hurdles of ‘restrictive thinking’.“ — Immo Sander, head of packaging development for Werner & Mertz
„It takes a network to realize packaging for the circular economy and we – Mondi and Werner & Mertz – were prepared to take up the challenge.“ — Thomas Kahl, EcoSolutions Project Manager for Mondi Consumer Packaging.
“What made this project exceptional was how all relevant parties were involved from the beginning – the brand owner, the packaging producer, the waste material collector and sorter, the recycler and the C2CC accredited assessor – and were consulted at every step of the product development process.” — Joachim Christiani, co-managing director of cyclos-HTP
“One key approach is “to close the circle so that packaging can be turned back into high-performance packaging again. The C2C approach is a vital step toward saving resources and reducing unnecessary waste.”— Dr Markus Helftewes, managing director of Germany-based Der Grüne Punkt
“This project is a lighthouse for all industries for how new products can be created.” — Albin Kälin, CEO of EPEA Switzerland
You can find out more about this product on the company website. Additionally, at EPEA Switzerland we have been very active in research, documentation and publication of topic-related knowledge. Here are some selected articles from the last years:
Article in Packaging Films from 2016