GERMANY
The German Design Council has honoured hawo's environmentally friendly packagingORGANIXtex concept with an Innovation Award. “The prize that makes innovation visible", is how the German Design Council, which has been acting as a leading centre of competence for communication and knowledge transfer since 1953, describes the German Innovation Award it hands out.
Just recently, the family-owned company hawo received an award for its sustainable packaging concept ORGANIXtex. As a manufacturer of packaging machines, hawo has been looking for environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional plastic films for many years.
"We were looking for a solution that could be processed on our machines just as well as a traditional plastic film, but without unnecessarily polluting the environment" says product manager Wolfram Krattinger. Since there were no corresponding products on the market, the company launched its own packaging concept at the end of 2020.
This is now used primarily in dry cleaners and laundries and enables environmentally conscious customers to opt for 100 % plastic-free packaging for their textiles on site. Unlike bio-based films that can already be found on the market, the consumable is not made from soybeans, maize or sugar cane grown especially for this purpose, but from a granulate made from potato peel residues.
For hawo managing director Christian Wolf, receiving the German Innovation Award is a special honour: "ORGANIXtex was a vision at the beginning, our own small contribution to more sustainability. Today, only a few months after its market launch, this solution is a reality that fulfils all the requirements for packaging 100% in the day-to-day operations of dry cleaners and laundries,” he said.
