Sustainable Waste Management

Our business units and sites strive to increase efficiency and are working constantly on various research projects for the prevention, reduction and recycling of waste. In turn, our networked sites enable us to re-use many waste and secondary flows as a raw material directly in neighboring plants – both our own as well as those of other chemicals companies – to create closed loops and thus avoid the generation of waste.

In addition, we are working to achieve the targets defined in the international program “Operation Clean Sweep” (OCS) of the Society of the Plastics Industry. OCS aims to prevent plastic particles or pellets from entering the marine environment and having an undesired impact. By joining in 2016, we made a commitment to train employees in this area, to implement measures to prevent the release of pellets at our facilities and to require our business partners to also take active steps to prevent pellet emissions.

In 2022, LANXESS ramped up its activities with regard to waste. Various working groups conducted potential and market analyses to look at new on-site and off-site recycling options, partnerships for innovative chemical recycling processes or the further standardization of waste reporting. The goal is to increase the circularity of waste streams.

The amount of waste generated has decreased significantly compared to the previous year. This is due on the one hand to the portfolio change and on the other hand to an adjusted declaration of aqueous waste streams at our site in El Dorado, U.S., on the basis of updated reporting standards. From the year 2022, the site’s slightly polluted wastewater is reported as wastewater. The remaining wastewater still accounts for the biggest share of our waste.

We group waste into five categories, each divided into hazardous and non-hazardous waste. The chart shows each category’s share (in %) of total waste.