Climate-positive circular economy secures the future
Always a step ahead
Current developments in scarcity of raw materials and global warming, in particular, show that we have to regard the changeover to the climate-positive circular economy as the existential challenge of our time.
Recycling up to more than 90 percent of the material from cooling appliances, obtaining new raw materials from these, e.g. ECO PS, ECO ABS, ÖKO PUR, and feeding them back into the business cycle, while completely collecting and destroying all climate-damaging gases:
This is our active contribution for the coming generations!
Safe disposal of climate-damaging substances
Although chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs for short, are now no longer used, millions of old cooling appliances are still in use, from which the harmful compounds get into the atmosphere, weakening the ozone layer. With the demanufacturing of cooling appliances by means of the SEG system, in addition to the recovery of raw materials, the climate-damaging CFCs from the end-of-life cooling appliances are also collected and then destroyed in high-temperature combustion.
This is decisive because CFCs have an impact on the greenhouse effect up to over 10,000 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. Although they are present in the atmosphere in relatively small quantities they nevertheless play an enormous part in producing the greenhouse effect.
Due to the highly climate-damaging effect of CFCs, the production of 1 tonne of PS regranulate from cooling appliance demanufacturing can currently save up to 100 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.
The RAL CO2OL print certificate of the neutral RAL quality association documents how much CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and destroyed in the production of ECO ABS/PS. The saving is documented for every tonne of ECO ABS/PS in the transparent monitoring.
Our own method for the production of CO2certificates
USG has also developed its own methodology for the production of CO2certificates from the CFCs contained in end-of-life cooling appliances, and this is now globally available to the voluntary market.
Comparison of climate impact
The following comparison presents the climate impact of a refrigerator due to the contained CFCs / hydrocarbons compared to that of a car and/or of a house per year. It shows clearly why every gram of CFCs / hydrocarbons needs to be recovered and destroyed. Demanufacturing, the way SEG performs it, is an important building block in striving towards CO2.
