RCS plans expansion with new plant, waste becomes raw material in Nordkirchen, Germany

Nordkirchen -- At the building committee meeting on Tuesday, May 28, 2024, the RCS Group from Werne published its plans to develop a new company site. The experienced recycling company recycles used disposable deposit bottles into secondary raw materials. Now a new subsidiary in the Ferdinand-Kortmann-Straße industrial estate in Nordkirchen is to expand this production.

The demand for recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) is growing. This is due on the one hand to the growing environmental awareness of consumers and on the other hand to the increasingly strict requirements for the production of packaging. The consumption of primary raw materials can be significantly reduced by using the secondary raw materials obtained.

The RCS Group from Werne has specialized in the sophisticated recycling of used disposable deposit bottles. The medium-sized disposal and recycling company has been taking care of the professional processing and recycling of commercial waste for more than 40 years. The company quickly recognized the ecological and economic potential of plastic recycling. RCS therefore expanded its business area and has been upgrading deposit bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) to pure flakes and granules for the non-food and food sectors since 2012. This secondary raw material can then be used for the production of films, textile fibers, product and food packaging.

The RCS Group currently consists of three companies: RCS Entsorgung GmbH, RCS Rohstoffverwertung GmbH and RCS Plastics GmbH. All three companies are located in Werne and will not only remain there, the recycling group will also expand in Werne.

The company currently employs 205 people with an average age of around 40 years, meaning that the average age in the RCS Group is 5 years below the Germany-wide average. This is thanks to the above-average training rate of over 15% in 5 apprenticeships plus part-time studies. RCS will continue its commitment to training and further education in Nordkirchen, again in cooperation with local schools.

More recycling requires more space

In order to achieve the appropriate quality of material from former waste, complex recycling processes are necessary. The associated production units require space. The RCS Group has already expanded to include a second location in Werne for the production of food-grade granulate. The recycling company intends to build a third location in the Ferdinand-Kortmann-Straße industrial estate in Nordkirchen. Material from the deposit system will also be recycled there.

"Society wants less waste and more recycling. Packaging manufacturers and politicians are responding to this. Demand for recycled plastic is therefore increasing in particular," explains Adelheid Hauschopp-Francke, one of the RCS Group's trio of managing directors. According to the European Green Deal, Europe should no longer produce greenhouse gases (net emissions) by 2050 and thus become climate neutral. "With the secondary raw materials we produce, we are helping to achieve this goal. This is because recycled plastic is a secondary plastic that reduces the consumption of primary plastics and partially replaces them.

Secondary raw material instead of primary raw material

"The processing is also more environmentally friendly than the production of new primary PET," the managing director continues. In collaboration with the Fraunhofer UMSICHT Institute, the company has prepared a calculation for the year 2023. This compares the consumption of new production with the recycling of PET. The certificate confirms that the RCS Group saves 169,063 t CO2 equivalents of greenhouse gas emissions and 1,346,820 MWh of energy per year. In addition, 75,839 t of fossil resources are saved. "We pay great attention to the use of modern systems and attach great importance to environmentally friendly production. With our modern machinery, we use 36% less energy than comparable technologies," adds Hauschopp-Francke.

This is planned so far

The managing director explains the project itself: “For the new production facility, we will establish another subsidiary called RCS Recycling GmbH, based in Nordkirchen. We are building a completely new site with halls, silos, offices and parking spaces.”