Making the world a little better together and ensuring a circular economy. That’s a mission that both DuFor and Keykeg fully support. So it’s no surprise both parties are working together. Bert Hanssen – Sustainability and R&D Advisor at KeyKeg – explains what this collaboration looks like.
For a number of years, OneCircle, supplier of KeyKeg (lightweight and sustainable beverage kegs), has been pushing the envelope internationally. “We offer circular plastic packaging for beer and wine. The product is not reused, but the materials are. About five years ago, we started looking for partners that could collect the beverage kegs. First in the Netherlands, later also in other northern and western European countries.”
The circular process under the microscope
Collecting the kegs is just the beginning of the circular chain, Bert explains. “We have found a series of partners, often small recycling companies, who are willing to collect the empty packaging at bars, hotels and restaurants, and then reduce the volume of the kegs by using a press. These companies also store the material, just until we have at least a half-full truck with packaging material. And if that’s the case, the material is taken to an intermediate storage facility.”
At that temporary storage facility, the material from all countries within Europe comes together. “Once we have collected 150 to 200 tons, it’s being transported to Germany. There they separate the seven different plastics that make up the kegs. We need all of those plastics for the functionality of the kegs. PET is more than half of the weight. This is washed clean and then goes to DuFor in small particles called flakes. Just like the industrial waste from the factories. To these plastics, additional recycled PET is then added by Dufor, followed by a portion of special polyester to achieve the right properties of the final product.”
Efficient and sustainable
But, as Bert explains enthusiastically, the material that is added fits perfectly into the circular process. “This is also material that already has had a life. Eventually, all the materials are mixed and melted into pellets. At DuFor, these pellets are further cleaned so that it can be used for injection molding of preforms. These are basically already the new kegs. These go to our factories where they are blown up into new KeyKegs so that they can be filled with the beverages.”
A top level collaboration
“As you can see, DuFor plays a very big part in the creation of our product and in making this circular loop possible. At DuFor, they really know their stuff. The company is not too big, so they can switch quickly and keep the lines of communication open. For us, the collaboration fully meets our expectations. In our early years we were actually too small for DuFor in terms of production volume. But as we grew harder, we were able to work with them and we are still very happy with that. If you manage to convert a used product into the same product, you are doing very well, I think. Especially if you do that with companies who show the same commitment as we do. I think that, together, we are working on one of the coolest examples of a circular economy. We are now doing the same in central and southern Europe, but in the future we hope to realize a similar loop in the US as well.”
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