A Vision of a Circular Economy for Banknote Waste

Not many people know that Royal Dutch Kusters Engineering (Kusters) used to make fluorescent lamp recycling equipment for the electronics giant Philips, glass recycling for the brewer Heineken and coffee pod recycling for Sara Lee.

In fact, Kusters continues to be active in non-banknote areas, working on separation and dewatering technologies for paper mills and insect breeding (to create animal feed). The separation technology is to allow, for example, plastic foil to be separated from household waste or stone and glass to be separated from compost.

Kusters’ retains, therefore, both useful corporate knowledge and memory and current expertise. Important given its current focus on the environmental challenge of shredded banknotes.

Circular economy

Jeroen Kusters, Director of Sales, recently presented at the Global Currency Forum on their work in this area, starting with a useful outline of context and different approaches.