Goal: Reducing Residual Waste

"Rubbish" is a key environmental issue. For one, it means that limited resources are wasted. For another, some types of waste (such as plastic bags or synthetic microparticles that end up in the oceans) pose a serious threat to wildlife. Read more about it here.

Last but not least, hazardous substances can be released into the environment if waste is not disposed of properly.

Despite the fact that waste management is already very well regulated in Germany, it is still an important environmental issue. In Germany, a total of 411,5 million tonnes of waste was generated in 2021. The recycling rate has also remained relatively constant in recent years (67.8% in 2021). In this context, the Federal Government has indeed achieved its target according to the Law on Life-Cycle-Management (65% of all municipal waste). However, this also means that 35% of waste is still not recycled. We are therefore a long way from a true circular economy. Greenpeace even speaks of illegal export of non-recyclable waste from Germany to Southeast Asia or Turkey: read more here.

As part of the European Green Deal, which aims for a resource-efficient, climate-neutral, and competitive economy for Europe, the EU is working to find solutions for higher recycling rates. In April 2024, new EU-wide regulations for packaging and recycling were introduced to reduce waste and promote the circular economy. EU member states are expected to produce less plastic packaging waste, packaging must meet stringent recycling requirements, and be better collected and separated. Learn more about it here.

VAUDE is extensively addressing the issue of packaging, continually striving to reduce it or replace it with recycled alternatives. More information on packaging can be found here.

The majority of the waste generated at the VAUDE campus in Tettnang consists of cardboard and mixed paper. VAUDE products are delivered by our producers in cardboard boxes and stored with us until we ship them to our customers.

Whenever possible, we reuse the original boxes for shipping to our (retail) customers. However, most products are unpacked from the boxes during order picking and reassembled per customer order. In such cases, the original boxes are recycled as waste paper.

All waste generated at the VAUDE campus in Tettnang is collected by local waste management companies and disposed of properly. The proportion of residual waste to the total waste generated at VAUDE's premises in Tettnang-Obereisenbach was 17 percent in 2023, which has increased further. We are currently critically analyzing why we are unable to reduce the proportion of residual waste.

As a first step, we are separately collecting all textile waste that is currently disposed of as residual waste. This allows us to monitor how the quantities are evolving and how we can best respond to them.

A first step in addressing this issue is the separate collection of all textile waste that is disposed of as residual waste. This allows us to monitor the quantities and determine the best ways to respond.

At VAUDE, residual waste is primarily generated at VAUDE in the Manufaktur and includes material remnants from the production of our waterproof bike bags.

Much of this ends up in the upcycling program (more about this here).

Our products are sorted in the repair workshop based on various criteria. All items that are no longer repairable or suitable for second-hand use are categorized according to the standards of the nonprofit organization FairWertung. We donate all usable items to this organization. Products that don't meet these criteria, or other waste that is too difficult to sort, such as from marketing events, end up as residual waste.

You can find more information about repairs at VAUDE here.

Residual waste is not recycled but "thermally processed," meaning it is incinerated as fuel for energy-intensive industries such as cement production or for energy generation. This is better than not using residual waste at all, but it would be much more environmentally friendly if we could avoid generating residual waste in the first place.

Therefore, we are trying to achieve a higher material efficiency in the Manufaktur by optimizing the patterns and the production processes, so we don’t need to throw as much material away. Read more about the material efficiency of the VAUDE Manufaktur here.

We are also involved in a research project looking for industrial partners who can use coated plastics for recycling despite the relatively small quantity - so far without success. There are two issues here – our quantities are quite small on an industrial scale and TPU-coated polyester materials are not homogeneous and therefore a real challenge for recyclers.

One example was the ReWerk project, in which we collaborated with partners from the fields of science and industry to research solutions that would enable the recycling and reuse of our material remnants from VAUDE products with innovative mechanical recycling processes.

Unfortunately, waste often grows with the growth of a company. The goal must therefore be to decouple the company's success from resource consumption and thus also from the volume of waste; more ideally, the total volume of waste and the volume of residual waste should decrease even as the company grows. In the following graphic, we show the development of waste volumes at VAUDE in comparison with sales growth.

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