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Greener’s Always Great

Everybody’s talking about sustainability right now. It’s what companies aim for when developing many of their products and packaging, although there are only a few adhesives on the market that currently hit the mark. Dr Felix Starck, Head of Development in the Thermoplastic Hot Melt Adhesives department at Jowat, is one of the people who would like to change that. He presents promising possibilities for adopting a more environmentally friendly and resource-saving approach with the right choice of adhesive.

Customer Magazine

Countless cardboard boxes are made of recycled materials, and carrier bags made of old PET bottles are already business as usual for today’s consumers. But what do these ‘green’ materials have in common with their conventional counterparts? In many cases, they have to be bonded. And here – at least in most cases – the adhesives used are made from fossil raw materials. Even if adhesive bonding only accounts for a small part of the process flows, the sustainability concept should not end here. After all, in 2019 alone, more than 14.7 million tonnes of adhesives were industrially processed worldwide, much of it for packaging and furniture manufacturing *. This is why anyone looking to be consistently sustainable and environmentally-friendly way in their operations really cannot afford to lose sight of this step in the process.

Growing enthusiasm for GROW

Dr Starck from Jowat is delighted that an internationally successful furniture group, to name just one example, is aiming to make greater use of bio-based adhesives. This is because the Head of Development of Thermoplastic Hot Melt Adhesives is certain: “If one global player pays attention to sustainable bonding, others – including smaller companies – will soon follow suit.” This is exactly why Jowat has been focusing on developing the most sustainable adhesive solutions possible for years.

Jowat forms part of the solution

With the Jowatherm® GROW product range, which was introduced in 2019, the Detmoldbased company can boast a product that contains up to 45 percent bio-based ingredients. In comparable formulations, this proportion is usually only a few percent. “No hot melt adhesive contains more bio-based raw materials while offering the same performance as a petroleum-based adhesive,” asserts Dr Starck, highlighting the advantages of the innovation. “The adhesive is just as reliable as usual, but with Jowatherm® GROW, our customers are using a much more resourceefficient product.” Jowat wants to be part of the solution and not create new problems. This is why the adhesive experts from Detmold attach great importance to the fact that the raw materials are exclusively waste or by-products from other industries and that there is no competition with the food industry.

Read the whole story and other interesting articles in our customer magazine.