On Friday, our parent company Otto Graf GmbH unveiled the GRAF Competence Centre for Raw Materials in Herbolzheim in the presence of Baden-Württemberg’s Environment Minister, Franz Untersteller, and the Mayor of Herbolzheim, Thomas Gedemer, accompanied by numerous guests. The Competence Centre for Raw Materials is an essential component of our strategy for the resource-friendly production of environmental products. The processing and recycling of plastic saves 100,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year compared to the use of new raw materials. At present, as much as 70 % of the material used in the manufacture of our products is regranulate. In the medium term, the aim is to increase this proportion to around 85 %.
The site in Herbolzheim is dedicated to pure sustainability: We create jobs in the vicinity of our existing production sites, thereby minimising emissions from transport, produce environmental products from recycled plastics and use rainwater as process water and coolant in the preparation of our raw materials.
Environment Minister Franz Untersteller emphasised our commitment to sustainability in his speech: “At a time when other manufacturers are still considering using recyclates, GRAF is already a big step ahead. The company is thus setting an example and making an important contribution to the conservation of limited natural resources with its Competence Centre for Raw Materials”.
Thomas Gedemer, Mayor of Herbolzheim, was also pleased about the decision to site the future-oriented competence centre in the industrial estate: “With the new plant of the GRAF Group, we not only have an impressive competence centre, but also an innovation centre from which technology is exported all over the world, which is groundbreaking for the future. Congratulations.”
The competence centre combines for the first time multiple process steps with new plant technologies to form an integrated process chain. The pioneering technology makes the plant the only one of its kind in the world. By processing raw materials ourselves, we ensure consistently high quality and make ourselves less dependent on the raw materials market.
