AWARDED THE BLUE ANGEL
Environment-friendly products and services
The Blue Angel has been the independent ecolabel of the German Federal Government for more than 40 years and sets stringent standards for environment-friendly products and services. This makes it the best guide in terms of sustainability for all consumers who want to have a green lifestyle and make green purchases. According to Blue Angel, over 12,000 environmentally friendly products and services from around 1,600 companies are awarded this ecolabel, and hanit® is one of them. Since 2005, the majority of our products made from hanit® recycled plastic have carried the Blue Angel ecolabel. It guarantees that our products do not contain any harmful substances and meet high standards with respect to their environmental, health and performance characteristics.
AWARD GUIDELINES
When awarding the Blue Angel, the entire life cycle of a product is assessed to take into account all the environmental and health-related aspects. The award criteria are reviewed every three to four years by the German Federal Office for the Environment and adapted in line with technical advances. Strict guidelines ensure that the Blue Angel is only awarded to products that have a minimal environmental impact and a high level of health protection in comparison with other products.
CRITERIA
There are many requirements that a product has to meet to be awarded the Blue Angel. For example, it must save resources during production, be made from sustainably produced raw materials or recycled materials, be easy to recycle or have a particularly long lifespan. Our material hanit® ticks all these boxes, as sustainability and environmental protection count in every single step we take. For example, we use a particularly dry mechanical process for cleaning the material to save valuable resources. Instead of primary raw materials such as crude oil, we only use recycled material in the form of films and mixed plastics from the Dual Systems to produce hanit®. hanit® recycled plastic is therefore made from 100% recycled plastic and is also 100% recyclable.
We also try to be as resource-conserving as possible during production and manufacturing. For example, production waste and offcuts are collected and fed back into the production cycle as reusable materials. Another important sustainability aspect for us is the quality and longevity of our products. The special material properties of hanit® recycled plastic make it particularly strong, rot-proof and unbreakable. It is also moisture-repellent and resistant to oil, alkali, acid and salt water, so the material is very low-maintenance and particularly durable.
PRICE/PERFORMANCE RATIO
More environmentally friendly products are often somewhat more expensive to purchase. Higher costs arise, for example, from the use of higher quality materials or from special eco-friendly production methods. However, if you consider the entire life cycle of a product, sustainable alternatives are often more economical. This is because many of the criteria that Blue Angel products in particular meet bring enormous cost savings over the long term. These include a longer service life, lower energy and raw material consumption or free return options.
PRODUCTS WITH NO BLUE ANGEL CERTIFICATION
Some hanit® products have to meet especially high standards in terms of stability and load-bearing capacity and, for this reason, require steel reinforcement, for example. As these additional components do not comply with the Blue Angel award guidelines, the corresponding products are not awarded the ecolabel. The same goes for our particularly tough and durable hanit® ULTRA. These are also role models when it comes to sustainability, but are not allowed to carry the German ecolabel because they are produced at our UK site. Nevertheless, they have a lot to offer in terms of environmental friendliness. The resource-conserving, eco-friendly production and high recycled plastic content in each product ensure sustainability is guaranteed with hanit®.