At the very beginning, back in 2005, there was the biogas plant.

Then, two years later, a small factory was added.

The then five employees of the company Biowert in the Hessian Odenwald produced insulating materials from grass, with which houses can be insulated.

The grass manure produced during the production process powered the biogas plant, the heat produced was used to manufacture the insulating material, and the electricity was fed into the grid.

An almost perfect cycle.

Kim Maurus

volunteer.

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"We were ten years too early with that," says Vera Schwinn today, fifteen years later.

The management assistant can still remember the early days well.

“Back then, acceptance wasn’t particularly high.

We weren't believed that it would work." But Biowert has stuck with it, with 14 employees today, the company still has a "start-up character", as managing director Jens Meyer zu Drewer says, but the idea of ​​the Odenwald is becoming popular seen in a different light.

Biowert no longer manufactures insulating materials. The company's product today is granulate, which usually consists of around forty percent grass fibers and sixty percent recycled plastic - and which can be processed into a large number of products.

Cortec, for example, does this, a company that is based just a few bio-value kilometers to the south.

Cortec uses the granulate to make clothes hangers for the drugstore chain DM.

If a hanger breaks, it can be melted down and reshaped up to eight times, says Meyer zu Drewer.

Toys, storage boxes and decorations can also be made from the grass plastic.

And the demand for it is increasing.

Last year, Biowert built a second production hall for 1.5 million euros, thereby quadrupling its capacity.

Ryegrass is particularly fluffy

Biowert's plant resembles a very frugal organism; only three external ingredients are needed to keep the machinery running.

The first are – mainly liquid – food leftovers, for example from canteens.

They are sterilized and come into the biogas plant.

Anything that doesn't convert into electricity and heat remains as fermentation residue, a natural fertilizer for the surrounding fields.

The resulting gas is used by two combined heat and power plants on the site.

They produce around 3.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity every year.

"We feed in a large amount of electricity, even at night and at the weekend when we don't need as much ourselves," says Meyer zu Drewer.

The company uses the waste heat from the combined heat and power plants to dry the grass fibers.

Grass is the second ingredient for the granules.

For the plastic, only the fiber that gives the blade of grass stability is relevant.

Biowert uses ryegrass, the company's original product, which is particularly good for thermal insulation because of its fluffiness.

The company is researching in cooperation with Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences whether other types of grass can also be used for the granules.

A producer group is currently growing the ryegrass in the Odenwald area especially for further processing.

"Our requirement is only in the per mille range of grass areas in Hesse," says Meyer zu Drewer.

That is a "vanishingly small" proportion.

Nothing is taken away from agriculture, the grasses would grow on EU set-aside land.