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Zero Waste - project becomes international initiative

In October 2018, the internal project "Zero Waste" started at HAWE Hydraulik in the form of regularly held network meetings to collect concrete measures and ideas to avoid single-use plastics. Since the start of the project, many measures have been successfully implemented, currently saving over 4 tons of plastic per year. In addition, more than 30 tons of paper are converted to recycled material. A very concrete contribution to environmental protection.

The project began under the name "Zero Plastics" at all production sites in Germany and was initially scheduled to run until the end of 2022, with the aim of no longer using single-use plastics. Since the measures showed that a pure consideration of single-use plastics falls short, the project was expanded to "Zero Waste Reduce, Re-use, Recycle". However, in order to make the HAWE world even more environmentally friendly in the future, the project will now become the international Zero Waste Initiative, which will exist permanently. For all materials used, the goal is to avoid unnecessary waste, establish reusable instead of disposable systems, and use recycled materials to achieve a resource-efficient circular economy.

True to the motto "every little progress counts!", many different measures have been implemented since the beginning of the project: from the avoidance of disposable packaging in the food sector, in the area of cleaning, for promotional gifts and office materials, to internal conversions from disposable bags to reusable folders, to the establishment of reusable systems with customers. HAWE employees are regularly informed about simple and effective tips, also for private everyday life.

The trainees are actively involved with their own project. One focus is the topic of plastic coffee cups. Here, the project team designs and builds its own machine for cleaning coffee cups - the "GreenClean," as the washing machine will be called. It can clean the cups within a few seconds using hot water. The trainees are not only concerned with Green Clean. They also contribute ideas for implementing other measures and are a great help to the Zero Waste project.

Previous experience with participation in energy efficiency networks has shown that mutual exchange and the development of solutions make it possible to achieve goals much more effectively and quickly. This gave rise to the idea of setting up a network here as well. The circular economy and resource efficiency department of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Munich and Upper Bavaria actively supports this idea. Corresponding meetings take place every six months, further interested parties are cordially invited. Please send an e-mail to zero-waste (at) hawe.de.

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