Interview with Dr. Clemens Willée, CEO Mauser Group

Which achievements of the company in the field of plastics packaging brought Mauser the greatest recognition?
We are happy to say that in the course of our history, Mauser innovations have initiated a series of transitions in industrial packaging. We have been one of the pioneers in bringing plastics to industrial packaging.

After starting with the first all-plastic cans for lube-oil and chemicals in the 1960s, Mauser presented its 120 litre Open Head plastic drum in 1967 – the first out of many innovative and award-winning plastic packaging solutions developed by Mauser. One piece blow-moulded L-Ring Tight Head drum design launched in 1977 or its later successor L-Ring PLUS launched in 1990 are even today industrial benchmark and have become international standards.

Introducing multilayer technology to plastic drums in the late 1990s opened new areas for the use of recycled plastic materials as well as providing additional functionality. In 2002, Mauser introduced the first 3-layer conductive plastic drum for use in EX-Zones. In the field of plastic drums we even squared the circle – our SquareDrum or the V-Press drum, developed in 2007, are only some examples of our unbroken spirit when it comes to innovation in plastic industrial packaging.


Your company focuses its attention on managing the entire lifecycle of industrial packaging products. The company developed strategy named ECO-CYCLE. What is ECO-CYCLE?
As you already mentioned, the ECO-CYCLE strategy is about managing the entire lifecycle of industrial packaging. Providing both economic and environmentally friendly packaging solutions for decades we recognised that our business should not only be about manufacturing new packaging. With the acquisition of National Container Group (NCG) as one of the leading reconditioners for industrial packaging in 2004, we started to develop our company into becoming a full service provider – managing the entire lifecycle of industrial packaging in a more sustainable way. Our ECO-CYCLE strategy is based on the following five pillars – covering the life cycle from development to end of use:
RENEW – frontrunner in investigating materials for the future,
REDUCE - minimise raw material use, energy consumption and environmental impact,
RECOLLECT – worldwide recollection system for industrial packaging,
REUSE - reconditioned packaging as a high-quality, low environmental impact solution,
RECYCLE – closing the cycle, giving materials new life.

The ECO-CYCLE approach is embedded in our overall and comprehensive sustainable company strategy. More details on ECO-CYCLE, its market success and our general sustainability approach can be found in our Sustainability Report or by visiting us at Interpack 2011.