Located in Düren’s industrial estate, the plain white production plant doesn’t exactly offer much in the way of eye candy. When Uwe D’Agnone purchases the site in summer 2018, one thing quickly becomes clear. The outside of the building needs to leave onlookers in no doubt that something very special is happening here. D’Agnone hails from Hennef, so it comes as no surprise that he knows Johannes Kremer and Marina Rempel, the duo behind Octagon Graffiti Art, the Hennef-based company that has transformed so many of the region’s drab façades into true works of art. When they hear about the idea of interpreting the concept of grass and grasspaper onto a façade, they are excited. So excited, in fact, that they decide to get started straight away – despite autumn and bad weather forecasts looming on the horizon. No more than eight weeks later, the project is complete and the result exceeds all expectations …
With its striking design, there’s no mistaking the company building, even from afar. The first industrial production plant is due to be commissioned in spring 2019. With an annual capacity of around 25,000 tonnes of pellets, the paper mills can then produce some 60,000 tonnes of grasspaper for a wide variety of packaging, from egg boxes and folding boxes for pizza or hamburgers to substitutes for plastic packaging – the sky really is the limit. ‘Grasspaper opens up a new dimension of sustainability in paper production,’ states D’Agnone, who, after more than seven years of development, is now stepping over the threshold into industrial production. What most in the traditional paper production sector previously dismissed as impossible is now becoming a reality – numerous brand manufacturers from ALDI and REWE to Coca-Cola are enthusiastic about the new raw material and their orders for grasspaper packaging are flooding in. creapaper is working at full steam to meet demand. The dried grass is specially prepared for the industry’s extortionately expensive paper plants through a patented process and is delivered in pellet form. Only when the new production plant inside the building is commissioned will D’Agnone finally be satisfied. After all, this will mean the wheels of revolution are in motion in the paper sector. The aim of creapaper is to establish the raw material of grass as a third pillar alongside wood and recycled paper in global paper production. Experts agree that no other raw material in the history of paper production has ever been more promising. D’Agnone stands in front of the building with the Octagon duo and can’t conceal his pride. He thanks them for their amazing work and dashes off to visit the next paper mill who has joined the queue for grasspaper.
