Knauf Circular® is equipped with new means of recycling
11 December 2020
The Saint Etienne de Saint Geoirs plant in French dept. of Isère has just been equipped with new equipment for crushing and compacting expanded polystyrene. This tool enables us to recycle the EPS packaging waste and construction site waste collected from our customers and members of the Knauf Circular® agreement. We are thus increasing our recycling capacity and the volumes of recycled polystyrene reintroduced into our production.
On receipt at the factory, the waste collected is sorted. Depending on its nature, it can follow one of two routes.
- Either it is crushed and reintroduced into the production of new Knauf EPS products, which is closed-loop recycling.
- Or it is crushed and compacted to be processed in Europe by partner recyclers who will enable it to be recycled in an open loop. They will be used to manufacture everyday products, technical & industrial or agricultural parts or insulation for the building industry.
With this investment in favor of the circular economy, the annual EPS waste treatment capacity of the Saint Etienne de Saint Geoirs plant is 300 tons, which represents 30,000 m3 per year.
Other investments are currently being rolled out at the French plants of the KNAUF group, thus providing an important national network for the collection and recovery of expanded polystyrene.
