Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

US: Owens Corning’s 16th Sustainability Report has detailed the producer’s progress towards achieving its 2030 sustainability goals. The report covers indicators under 16 topics to demonstrate its environnmental footprint reduction. These included lowering greenhouse gas emissions, increasing recycled content and circularity, improving energy and process efficiency, increasing renewable energy use and fuel switching from on-site fossil fuel use to lower or zero-carbon alternatives. Between 2007 and 2021, Owens Corning reduced its CO₂ emissions by 60%. In 2021, it recycled 635,000t of glass in its glass wool insulation production.

CEO Brian Chambers and senior vice president and chief sustainability officer (CSO) Frank O'Brien-Bernini said "We have established roadmaps to help our teams understand what’s needed to meet our environmental footprint reduction goals. These roadmaps guide our short, mid and long-term strategies, and help ensure that sustainability remains our priority as we innovate to serve our customers, while addressing both the challenges and the opportunities within the relevant secular trends." They continued "Beyond environmental footprint reduction 'within' our plants, we are working to refine our understanding and set measurable goals for our impact on biodiversity and the circular economy, as well as continually seeking better ways to measure our progress on social impact priorities like inclusion and diversity.”

Belgium: Knauf Insulation has officially opened a new Euro15m glass mineral wool recycling plant in Visé. It will recycle the glass mineral wool as part of its ‘Resulation’ service. The site will also recycle production off-cuts from Knauf Insulation’s Visé glass mineral wool production plant using a dedicated production line and furnace. The inauguration event was attended by Olivier de Wasseige, managing director of the Walloon Enterprise Network.

Dominique Bossan, member of Knauf Group’s management committee and head of Knauf Insulation Europe, Middle East and Asia, said, “The new facility is an important step towards achieving Knauf Insulation’s commitment to generate zero waste to landfill by 2025 as part of the company’s ‘For A Better World’ sustainability strategy.

Knauf Insulation says that around 85,000t/yr of glass mineral wool waste are generated in France, while in Belgium and the Netherlands the figure is around 30,000t/yr with 26,000t of that total coming from demolition.

Germany: BASF has launched Neopor Mcycled expandable polystyrene (EPS) granulate, an EPS insulation raw material containing 10% recycled EPS waste. Building materials producer Karl Bachl collaborated in the product’s development.

Karl Bachl Managing Director Michael Küblbeck said “Today’s EPS insulation materials from the construction and packaging sectors can be fully recycled. At present, the high-quality recycled material is mainly sourced from waste streams from the packaging sector. That means we can already ensure that the recycled material is of the necessary high quality.”

France: Isover plans to spend Euro120m on increasing the production capacity of its existing production lines and building a new line by 2025. The subsidiary of Saint-Gobain says the move will add over 70,000t/yr to its glass wool production capacity. The move is in response to “very strong demand driven by energy renovation.”

Euro20m of the planned investment will be targeted at decarbonising production and developing the circular economy. Isover intends to install a treatment unit for deconstruction waste to be reincorporated into the production process as a substitute for virgin raw materials. It also wants to increase in the proportion of recycled glass used in the production process to 80% by 2025.

Isover operates three glass wool plants in France, at Chalonsur-Saône, Chemillé and Orange respectively.

France: Knauf France has launched ThermaSoft Natura, a domestic thermal insulation product made from plant-based materials. It will be made using cotton scraps from textile manufacturing, jute fibres from recycled food bags and flax fibres from agricultural crops, according to Le Moniteur. The product will be manufactured in the Lyon region and distributed from April 2022.

Netherlands: Belgium-based Triple Helix has signed an agreement as one of the first concessionaires at the NextGen District at the Port of Antwerp. It plans to build a plant to convert polyurethane foam, from insulation panels and other sources, into polyols. These chemicals can then be reused, for example in the production of new polyurethane products. The plant is intended to be fully circular and self-sufficient in terms of energy.

Steven Peleman, the chief executive officer of Triple Helix, said “To drastically reduce emissions and waste pollution, we want to show the principle of material reincarnation to the world. In our plant at NextGen District, we want to recover polyurethane foams at the end of their life and transform them into their main components to be used again in new products. This is innovative and challenging, but with Port of Antwerp, BlueChem and our industrial and knowledge partners, we are ready to fight this battle. Not words but deeds!”

The Port of Antwerp has set aside the former 88 hectare General Motors site to develop into a future circular economy hotspot. Rubber and plastics recycling company US-based Bolder Industries has also signed up for an early place at the port.

Uzbekistan: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has issued a US$5m loan to Ecoclimat Group for the launch of a new subsidiary, Angren Insulation. The company will use the loan to build a 32,000t/yr glasswool plant in Tashkent. The plant will use recycled glass as an input and reduce the group’s CO₂ emissions by 85,000t/yr. The insulation producer said that it will help it to meet the growing local demand for mineral-based insulation.

US: Ireland-based Kingspan has acquired Minnesota Diversified Products, the producer of the DiversiFoam range of expanded polystyrene (EPS) and extruded polystyrene (XPS) foam and polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam billets. The group says that DiversiFoam will join Kingspan Insulation’s North American division and become a key proponent of its 10-year sustainability programme, Planet Passionate. It plans to expand the company’s Rockford EPS foam plastic recycling plant. Minnesota Diversified Products is committed to recycling 99% of production waste.

Managing Director Doug Crawford said "DiversiFoam and Kingspan are a natural fit from a geographic, technical and cultural perspective. The combination of these two outstanding businesses, coupled with Kingspan’s commitment to further investment will provide our collective customer base, our employees and our business partners with significant value. I am thrilled to welcome the DiversiFoam team into the Kingspan family.”

Germany: Cemex Zement has launched Insularis cement-free concretes, a product range suitable for use in building insulating components. The range includes lightweight concretes Insularis Supra and Insularis Infra. Due to its low bulk density, Insularis Infra currently requires special case-by-case or project-related approval for use in Germany. The company said that it produces Insularis concretes from a mix of recycled and natural raw materials. It added that Insularis is itself 100% recyclable.

Austria: Austrotherm has launched a nationwide extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation cut-off collection service. The service will pick up waste XPS insulation from building sites for recycling in production at Austrotherm’s Purbach XPS insulation plant.

Technical director Heimo Pascher said “Our XPS sheets are ideal for recycling and can be fed back into the production process - this enables us to reduce CO₂ emissions and the consumption of resources in production. We are taking an important step in the direction of the circular economy.” He added “We have carefully analysed the savings effect. By recycling we reduce the CO₂ emissions in the disposal of construction site waste by at least 50%. With every tonne of XPS which we recycle, 1.80t of CO₂ can be saved. Or, to put it more impressively, every tonne of XPS that we recycle from construction sites saves as much CO₂ as around 148 European beech trees bind in a year.”