Production
Pioneering spirit and technological progress
The innovative products from WEPA fulfil the needs of people and markets – and have always advanced in tandem with technological manufacturing progress.
With a pioneering spirit and determined investment in production facilities, WEPA has built up decades of experience in recycling fibres for hygiene paper. Today, we continue to invest in innovation and technology to ensure our production is fit for the future: As a founding partner of the Model Factory Paper, we are working with research partners on solutions designed to reduce energy consumption in stock preparation and paper machines by up to 80 per cent, and we are testing alternative fibres on an industrial scale. In doing so, we regard modern technology as the foundation for our ambition to establish hygiene products made from recycled and alternative fibres in the market.
Past and present: on the left WEPA’s first paper machine – put into operation on 12 December 1958. Its working width was 1.68 metres with a speed of 80 metres per minute. On the right a contemporary paper machine: in addition to virgin fibres it can also process recovered paper, and produces hygiene paper with a speed of up to 2,200 metres per minute and the working width, in some cases, exceeds more than five metres.
Raw materials
Used cardboard is dissolved with water in the pulper.
Fibre pulp
The material/water mixture is purified.
Paper machine
The fibre pulp is dewatered and a paper web is produced. The water is collected and reused.
Drying cylinder
The paper web is dried.
Parent role
Each paper web is wound into a parent roll.
Processing machine
The paper is embossed and perforated.
Rods of paper
The hygiene paper is wound onto a core which is then machine-cut to create the individual rolls.
Packaging
The rolls are bundled and packaged in bags.
Pallets
The packaged hygiene paper is stacked on pallets and wrapped in foil.
Sustainability
Responsibility for future generations
As a family-run business, we think in terms of generations, not quarters: economic stability is the foundation that makes environmental and social progress possible in the first place – and our responsibility towards our employees, the continued existence of our company and society has been with us for more than seven decades. The focus here is on the use of resources: by 2030, at least 60 per cent of the products we sell are to be made from recycled fibres and non-wood-based virgin fibres (2025: 31.82 per cent); the production of our recycled fibres requires up to 78 per cent less energy than the wood-based virgin fibres used at WEPA.
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