Gustav Dengel is Product Manager at Jokey SE. The company uses the new RAL Quality Mark for % of Recycled Plastic. In an interview with the RAL Quality Marks Magazine, Gustav Dengel explains the benefits of the label for consumers and why his company decided to apply for the RAL Quality Mark.
Name of the company: Jokey SE
Holder of the RAL Quality Mark for % of Recycled Plastic since: 2019
Location: 15 locations worldwide
Number of employees: 2,000
Services offered: Packaging made out of plastic
Website: www.jokey.com
Mr. Dengel, why did your company decide to offer products with the RAL Quality Mark for % of Recycled Plastic?
Gustav Dengel: It is often not possible to clearly identify the source of the secondary raw materials being processed. By using the RAL Quality Mark, we guarantee that our packaging is made out of recycled raw materials that have been sourced from a cycle of near-household waste collections. The RAL Quality Mark means that the source of the recyclate is documented and the proportion used can be reliably identified on the packaging.
What product groups are labelled with the RAL Quality Mark?
Gustav Dengel: We produce packaging buckets for the non-food industry that carry the RAL Quality Mark. These packaging buckets are available in a variety of shapes and sizes. All of the packaging we produce is made out of PP mono-material and is thus suitable for high-quality and complete recycling. This means that even the packaging made out of recyclate can also be fed back into the material recovery cycle after use and recycled for the production of new packaging without any problems.
What is special about the products that carry the relatively new RAL Quality Mark for % of Recycled Plastic?
Gustav Dengel: The special thing is that both the distributor of the packaging products and also the end user and interested consumers can feel secure that the packaging being used conforms to a large extent to the concept of the circular economy – i.e. the reuse of raw materials. From a technical perspective, we could produce our packaging products using up to 100 percent of these materials. However, our packaging products are exposed to tough physical challenges during their service lives from the filling process through to their use by the end consumer. Therefore, additives from primary goods or post industrial recycling (PIR) are sometimes required. Nevertheless, the ability to produce packaging where 50 percent or more of its total weight is accounted for by recyclate is an outstanding step in the right direction. And it is expected that even more will be possible in future due to technical advances. Incidentally, Jokey has supplied packaging made out of PCR materials since the beginning of the 1990s following the introduction of the German Packaging Ordinance (Verpackungsverordnung).
What developments do you expect in your sector due to the introduction of the RAL Quality Mark?
Gustav Dengel: We hope that other filling companies will follow the role models in the sector and will switch over to packaging made out of post consumer recycled plastic wherever it is technically possible.