German film manufacturer RKW (Frankenthal; www.rkw-group.com) has expanded its film extrusion capacity and downstream lines for manufacturing waste bags. The two newly installed lines in Echte / Germany together offer a capacity of 3,000 t/y. This has boosted the overall capacity of the now 10 waste-bag production lines at the site to 15,000 t/y.

The expansion was coordinated with German bin bag supplier Emil Deiss (Hamburg / Germany; www.deiss.de) as a longstanding customer. RKW is moving in to close a gap after an unnamed competitor who also supplied Deiss ceased production and the Hamburg-based company simultaneously registered a significant increase in demand for standard waste bags for bin-bag holders and facility cleaning.

RKW also produces industrial packaging at its Echte site, including form-fill-seal (FFS) films and shrink films. Site director Markus Brinkmann says EUR 1.6m has already been invested in waste-bag capacity over the past two years. The film manufacturer and processor with an overall extrusion capacity of 367,000 t/y produces polyethylene bags for Deiss – as do a number of other companies in the industry.

Deiss sales manager Sören Dede notes that the two companies have been working together for decades. Deiss has its own brands produced at RKW, and development work is carried out jointly. Regarding the current discussion on plastics and packaging, a greater focus is being placed on sustainability and a circular economy, even though the waste bags already contain 95-98% recyclate.

“We are trying to make the film thinner while still retaining its functional properties,” Dede told Plasteurope.com. The film thickness for a standard bin bag is currently 30-40 µm. “Depending on the additives used, however, there is still further scope for reduction.” At the same time, endeavours are underway to develop new material sources, including through chemical recycling of household waste.

Deiss belongs to the Sund group (Hamburg; www.sundholding.com), as do household articles supplier Fipp Handelsmarken (Hamburg; www.fipp.de) and disposable and reusable gloves specialist Bingold (Hamburg; www.bingold.com). The companies use largely LDPE and HDPE, as well as PLA to a lesser extent, and paper. The group with a total of 140 employees generated sales of around EUR 177m in 2019 – somewhat below target, said Dede.