Sustainably better – without foil


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Leonhard Kurz Stiftung & Co.KG
Leonhard Kurz Stiftung & Co.KG Logo

Sustainably better – without foil

Fascinating surface effects, bright colors, ultra-thin yet high-gloss metallizations – KURZ has been a leader in the finishing of paper and cardboard surfaces since the company was founded, and has expanded its expertise in recent decades to include the finishing of materials such as plastics for packaging, automotive parts, white goods and furniture surfaces. KURZ's core technologies, hot stamping and cold transfer, not only deliver premium visual results, but meet demands for high recyclability and support sustainable economic management.

Beautifully finished and simply beautiful

When it comes to recognizing the difference and quality of a product from the packaging alone, there's no getting around KURZ transfer products. Our technologies make your packaging as unique and outstanding as the product itself. Seductive gloss, holographic depth effects, tangible differentiation through haptic structures or simply stunning colors in combination with various embossing techniques. No other finishing technology provides so many options at a quality that meets the highest standards.

Fully recyclable

A common misconception is that foil is transferred to the substrate during hot stamping and cold transfer, creating a composite (laminate) that is difficult or even impossible to recycle. But that's not the reality. Although a foil is used for both processes, it only serves as an intermediate carrier for our finishing products. The actual finishing is an ingenious sequence of ultra-thin varnish or metallization layers separated from the intermediate carrier in the machine and transferred to the material to be finished by heat and pressure (during hot stamping), or pressure and adhesive (during cold transfer). The coating itself does not affect the recyclability of the product. Plastic packaging with finishes from KURZ can be mechanically recycled, coated paper and cardboard can be recycled as normal or sometimes even composted.

100 percent deinkable

Deinkability is an important requirement for paper and cardboard in the recycling process. This means that printing inks and other surface treatments (finishes, paints and fillers) from paper fiber can be dissolved so that new paper can be produced from the cleaned fibers. The International Research Association for Deinking Technology (INGEDE) has certified many KURZ transfer products, both cold transfer and hot stamped, as deinkable - and new certifications are constantly being added to KURZ's other products and innovations. The deinking residue is usually used thermally to generate electricity and process heat (steam) in paper mills.

Cost-effective design and clever construction

How about combining printing and custom finishing in a single inline process? Right from the first print run for a limited special edition, for product variants or for a product only produced in limited quantities? DIGITAL METAL® provides exactly that, and lets you customize your finishing! This is as economical as it is sustainable, since inline operation eliminates the need for additional machine runs. It not only saves time and money, but also energy. Better yet, however, are the results, because DIGITAL METAL® turns attractive labels, for instance, into customized building blocks for completely new sales strategies.

A real circular economy: KURZ RECOSYS

Sustainability is not new to KURZ. Sustainable production has been an integral part of KURZ's identity for decades, and our corporate actions are characterized by a high level of commitment to environmental management and responsible use of resources. As long ago as 50 years, KURZ's daily doings already included issues of conservation of resources, energy saving, limiting the use of hazardous substances, and emission protection, long before government regulations such as the Immission Control Act and hazardous substances legislation came into effect. The company has since steadily advanced its tradition of sustainability and its orientation by using innovative processes and boosting energy efficiency.

This is also reflected in the company's holistic understanding of recycling, which extends to the finishing products KURZ offers its customers. We always consider the entire process and the entire product, with a view to working towards a circular economy. Our commitment does not end with the recyclability of finished materials. Instead, KURZ is taking a crucial step towards a true circular economy with RECOSYS, a system developed in-house for collecting and recycling PET carriers. KURZ is thus the only manufacturer in the world that takes its carrier materials back after the finishing process and turns them into PET recycled material for use in the plastics industry. Which is anything but easy, by the way, because meeting the full scope of requirements of the plastics industry took several years of development and much experience. RECOSYS ensures that customers benefit from this developmental edge and the certainty that their PET carrier is mechanically recycled. KURZ has already put the first large-scale plant into operation at the Fürth site, and further systems are planned at all KURZ production sites worldwide.

With sustainable innovations like RECOSYS, KURZ highlights how customers with KURZ technologies do not sacrifice attractive finishing. On the contrary, KURZ's sustainable solutions will continue to help differentiate their products from competitors, true to the slogan: "Sustainability without sacrificing excellence in finishing".

RECOSYS: perfected finishing

See how our Heidenheim pilot customer Edelmann GmbH is helping put RECOSYS into practice. We have teamed up with this packaging specialist and designed the return system to be suitable for daily use.

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