Essity: Increasing Circularity with Straw Pulp
In 2019 Essity embarked on an alternative fibers project at its Mannheim mill in Germany, using wheat straw as its raw material. The project successfully started up just two years later in 2021. Tissue360° spoke to Factory Manager Martin Wiens about the interesting journey from conception to start-up and beyond.
Essity’s Mannheim production site is one of the largest tissue mills in Europe, with a capacity of 283,000 finished products per year, five tissue machines, and 27 converting lines. With environmental innovation at the heart of if its mission, Essity is the first company in the industry to use agricultural leftovers at an industrial scale for making tissue.
The production of tissue from straw pulp is part of Essity’s journey to increase circularity and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
TISSUE360O: WHY WAS THE CONCEPT OF MAKING TISSUE FROM WHEAT STRAW ORIGINALLY DEVISED BY ESSITY?
WIENS: Essity prides itself on being a global leader in sustainable solutions for hygiene and health and we are committed to advancing the circular economy in the tissue industry. The company has ambitious sustainability goals and strives to contribute to a circular society where nothing goes to waste. Straw is an agricultural by-product that is today largely left unused; and through its innovative technology, Essity decided to find a way of introducing straw into the raw material circle.
In their critical search for a viable technology, our technology experts at Essity eventually found Sustainable Fibers Technology (SFT), a US-based company, that specializes in sustainable, environmentally friendly non-wood pulping. We started some trials, which convinced us to continue working with SFT’s Phoenix technology. Essity has secured the exclusive rights to the innovative technology from SFT for tissue making with some exceptions in North America.
This project is a great example of how Essity takes the lead when it comes to leveraging innovative technologies for better hygiene and health solutions with lower environmental footprint.
WHY WAS THE MANNHEIM SITE CHOSEN FOR THIS PROJECT?
Mannheim is the largest Essity tissue site, with many years of experience in pulp and hygiene product production. Here we have the necessary know-how to implement such a complex innovation, and we also have the space to build the necessary extension required for this project.
We source wheat straw from the region and have thus become more independent from global supply chains. The short transportation routes—from a radius of around 300 kms—ensure improvements in the life cycle assessment.
WHAT MAKES WHEAT STRAW IDEAL FOR TISSUE MAKING? CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE PULPING PROCESS USED BY ESSITY?
Wheat straw pulping is not new. What is unique is that this is the first large-scale use of bleached wheat straw pulp for tissue production in the world.
Essity has decided to focus on wheat straw because it is an agricultural by-product that today is to a large extent left unused. Thanks to our innovative technology, we are able to re-introduce leftover wheat straw into the raw material circle and produce high quality products.
Furthermore, the lignin by-product from the pulp straw production process, branded as InnoLig+®, has unique quality features and can be used as dust suppressant in the mining and civil industry, as plasticizer in the concrete industry, as fertilizer and binder for animal feed in farming, or as binder in the wooden pellet industry.
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE PROCESS USED IN THE PRODUCTION OF TISSUE FROM WHEAT STRAW?
Essity owns a license for the technology from SFT. This technology uses agricultural residue as raw material to make pulp for sustainable papers. Together with machine supplier Andritz, we built a straw pulp factory at the Mannheim site that sets new standards in tissue making.
Essity has invested 40 million Euro in this facility and is the first and only tissue company in Europe that works with the innovative SFT technology. Essity is also the first in Europe to produce bleached high-quality alternative pulp at industrial scale for tissue making. We have an annual capacity to produce 35,000 tons of pulp from straw.
HOW DID THE PROJECT GO, INCLUDING START-UP? ANY MAJOR CHALLENGES?
The initial planning started in 2019, and we started producing in late 2021. This is record time for a project of this scale, even more impressive since the COVID-19 pandemic started in exactly that time period. This made installation and start-up of the equipment in collaboration with a huge number of external contractors very challenging.
As Essity is the first producer to work with the exclusive SFT technology, we could not refer to previous experience. Both we and our technology suppliers are learning on the way, and we are very proud that the majority of our branded toilet paper assortment in central Europe contains a stable amount of 10 percent of straw pulp.
DOES MAKING TISSUE OUT OF WHEAT STRAW THROW UP CHALLENGES?
Yes, anything new pertaining to fiber comes with new challenges on the tissue machines. Mannheim is a fully integrated site and we had to add the straw pulp production into our existing processes. The process is unique, and we invested time and effort to continuously improve the quality parameters.
The quality of our wheat straw pulp does not differ from conventional fresh fiber pulp. It is white, soft, and strong.
We are still in a ramp-up phase and are stabilizing the production. The toilet paper assortment in central Europe today contains at least 10 percent straw. Our ambition is to increase this amount and also use the alternative pulp in other tissue products, like household towels.
WHAT PRODUCTS ARE BEING MADE USING WHEAT STRAW PULP?
Essity is the first tissue company to produce and use alternative fibers at an industrial production level. We are using our high-quality straw pulp in toilet paper. Almost our complete assortment of branded toilet papers in central Europe today comes with 10 percent straw pulp content.
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE QUALITY, INCLUDING BRIGHTNESS, SOFTNESS, AND STRENGTH?
When we started the project it was always clear that the quality of our products must stay at the usual high level that our customers and consumers expect us to deliver. With the exclusive SFT technology we are able to produce a sustainable wheat straw pulp that is as soft, white, and strong as wood-based market pulp.
WHAT ARE THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND FINANCIAL BENEFITS OF MAKING TISSUE OUT OF WHEAT STRAW?
Wheat straw is a fast-growing alternative to fresh wood-based fibers and to recycled fibers, allowing Essity to broaden its choice of raw materials for the production of high-quality tissue.
The SFT technology needs less water and energy than the conventional pulp process. Less energy, for example, is needed to cook and split the straw and no artificial pressure is needed. The water use is circular and mainly kept in the process.
Essity is using Life Cycle Assessments to understand the environmental footprint of our products. We are analyzing the resources like energy and water and their CO2 impact over the complete life cycle of a product. High-quality pulp from straw is a complete novelty and we are still ramping production. Initial calculations, however, indicate that the carbon footprint of straw pulp is 30 percent less than fresh fibre pulp and 20 percent less than pulp from recycled fibers.
ARE THERE ANY OTHER PLANS FOR USING WHEAT STRAW OR ANY OTHER ALTERNATIVE FIBERS IN THE FUTURE AT ESSITY PRODUCTION SITES?
Our focus is to further improve and stabilize the wheat straw pulp production at our Mannheim site.
Essity is also continuously investing in new technologies to develop alternative materials and to use a larger share of recycled materials. The project in our Hondouville, France, site, where we recycle food and beverage cartons, is such an example.
