Foto: WEBER Packaging GmbH für © EDEKA Dirnberger, 2019
The new version of the grass paper cup introduced by WEBER Packaging GmbH back in 2018 has unique visual and tactile features which clearly draw attention to its grass content. Currently probably the most sustainable disposable cup in the world, this is the ideal solution wherever reusable systems do not achieve a positive eco-balance.
"We are aware that reusable systems are currently on everyone's lips," says Managing Director Sales, Stephan Weber. Nevertheless, the Swabian family business offers a new type of disposable cup: the so-called grass paper cup.
"This is something that needs to be explained," comments Ingo H. Klett, one of currently almost 230 coffeologists worldwide. It is important to the former full-time freelance journalist that no so-called greenwashing is carried out within the framework of WEBER Corporate Communications, for which he has been responsible since 2011: "For example by glossing over or glorifying problematic things. On the contrary.
Benefit- before profit maximization
The last time the management took up the flag as its highest maxim was in October 2017, it is remarkable. "For us, maximizing benefits comes before maximizing profits," says Stephan Weber and adds: "Of course, like any other business enterprise, we too must make corresponding profits. But the causality is exactly the other way round. This is now confirmed by many studies in the natural sciences. What this means in everyday business is now clear to the entire workforce. Last but not least, both Weber brothers set an example themselves on a daily basis: whoever offers a benefit to third parties automatically makes a profit.
In comparison
If a small café in the countryside can count on a 70 to 90 percent return rate with regard to a reusable system, this is a good thing. Also finds WEBER. But for a customer with around 120 branches in high-frequency locations and a return rate of less than 30 percent, the bill would look very different:
Around 9,600 to 12,800 double-walled cups, each with a capacity of 0.2 or 0.3 litres, fit on a Euro pallet. They are thin-walled, lightweight and stackable. "Just imagine the same number of returnable cups or even travel mugs in terms of volume", comments Heiko Burk from WEBER Logistik on the illustrative example: "Without going into the significantly higher energy, water and CO² consumption in their production, the combined transport weights, space consumption and the significantly higher logistics costs alone are probably responsible for several truckloads. If not nearly every returnable cup returns to the point of issue, it will be damn difficult to achieve a positive ecological balance.
For many users, the grey area is also a powerful argument that officially still no used packaging is allowed to be taken by guests over a counter into a shop and come into contact with something there. For all of them, such an implementation with reusable cups for hygienic reasons is not possible per se.
Climate-friendly proportion of grass
The grass-paper cup jumps - as currently probably the most sustainable coffee to go cup of all - right into this niche. Because the outer wall of the double wall consists of a high proportion of grass, the same amount of the formerly used raw material wood can be saved as a very slowly growing raw material. This is equivalent to a saving of 75 percent of the previous CO² emissions. The inclusions of these natural fibres are clearly visible and tangible in the new version.
global warming
Mare editor-in-chief Nikolaus Gelpke, who had already made a name for himself as a marine biologist years before his editorial work, argues that the entry of plastics into the world's oceans is currently too much in the media focus. The fact itself is "terrible", he says, but there are three other parameters that would cause even greater damage to nature and the environment. First and foremost are the much-cited CO² emissions:
"We cannot, of course, determine with 100 percent accuracy the factors that most damage our life on Earth. But the fact that a correspondingly high and at the same time unpredictable impact on our atmosphere and environment takes place - in this respect, the much-cited CO² emissions certainly promote the most lastingly damaging processes. In my opinion, the next point that would come immediately after this would be the overfishing of the world's oceans.
Rapidly renewable raw material
Currently, only one company produces the raw material for the paper mix known as grass paper, Creapaper GmbH from Hennef. Its managing director, Uwe D'Agnone, is already well-known within the paper industry like a colorful dog. Several paper mills work with the so-called GRASPAP® Pellets as raw material.
The grass for this comes from EU compensation areas, he says. The hay from this is then pressed purely mechanically and without the addition of water and chemicals, greatly reduced in volume, to produce the very pellets that are marketed at the end of the process under the brand name GRASPAP®.
Lifestyle accessory with a positive aura
Whether in the social media or in direct contact with the end consumer: the grass paper cup is popular. Duje Dadic, owner of the coffee roasting company Dylan & Harper in Wiesbaden: "We were virtually overrun after we made the grass paper cup famous." This is certainly not least due to the designer Marina Brockhoff, who gave the new Ecocup its high-quality design.
The cup design is available in German and English. Around a centrally placed calligraphy, small fresh blades of grass subtly painted with artists' colours can be seen in various shades of green.
Technical facts about grass paper
The outer wall of the grass paper cup in particular is made of the much-cited grass paper. Its paper mix currently has a grass content of around 25 percent.
Some of the paper mills known to WEBER Packaging GmbH are already working with grass content of up to 50 percent in their paper mix for other products. But not in the coffee to go cup. Here WEBER Packaging GmbH still sees a need for improvement on the part of the paper industry.
At the moment, a maximum of 50 percent grass in the total paper mix is regarded as the maximum possible to prevent the paper pulp from tearing during processing or later. For Uwe D'Agnone and the paper mills he supplies, the first priority is therefore constant research into a paper mix that does not break or tear from waste paper and/or virgin fibres in combination with the aforem.
The myth of compostability
Labeled as "biodegradable", the grass paper cup, like so many other packaging materials, quickly gives the impression that it would be safe in private compost under any conditions. This is by no means the case. The EU standard 13432, which defines the circumstances in more detail, is subject to conditions that only industrial composting plants in this country could meet when composting. However, if, like the team at WEBER Packaging GmbH, one looks for such possibilities, disillusionment very quickly sets in. Not a single plant has yet been found which offers the long rotting times required to compost the material properly at certain temperatures, humidity levels and with appropriate mechanical processing and regular repositioning. In conclusion, the only remaining route is thermal recycling, i.e. waste incineration.
Nevertheless, WEBER product management clearly favours its grass paper cup as the optimum: the mentioned savings in its production alone justify its special position.
User-oriented solution
The grass paper cup is available in two sizes. In addition to numerous regular lid variants, there are also those made of a bio-polymer (PLA) available for it, which are marked as "compostable". Here too, the team at WEBER Packaging GmbH explicitly points out once again that only individual waste management companies in individual regions could recycle a material such as PLA, if at all. Consumers are therefore urged to inform themselves about local waste management systems. A special search engine for this purpose has been set up by the Nature Conservation Association of Germany.