Evonik and REMONDIS cooperate to recycle PU in mattress foams

Evonik and REMONDIS Group, a recycling companies to secure the supply of end-of-life mattress foams, cooperate to process chemical recycling of polyurethane (PU) foam from old mattresses.

(From left to right) Thomas Wessel, Chief Human Resources Officer and Labor Relations Director of Evonik and responsible for sustainability; Jürgen Ephan, Managing Director of REMONDIS Recycling; and Dr. Patrick Glöckner, Head of Evonik’s Global Circular Economy Program.

Evonik’s hydrolysis process can recover the main components of PU foam and reuse them as high-quality materials in new mattresses production

For REMONDIS, it contributes the expertise in sorting PU flexible foams from waste and feeding them into the cycle in constant quality so that they can be converted into chemical recyclates using Evonik’s hydrolysis process.

According to estimation, more than 250 kilotons of PU foam from old mattresses are incinerated or landfilled in Europe every year. The cooperation between Evonik and REMONDIS helps reduce use of fossil raw materials, closes the material cycle in PU industry and achieve circularity.

The hydrolysis process by Evonik is currently being tested in a pilot plant in Hanau, Germany, and will be tested in a larger demonstration plant in the next step.