WachswandelUG

Wachswandel UG (haftungsbeschränkt) · Weilerswist, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany · founded December 2024

The problem

Every year, large volumes of candle wax end up in residual waste across Europe. Grave lights from cemeteries, church candles and household candle residues arrive mixed with plastic cups, aluminium lids, tinplate and glass. Because of this mix, the material is classified as residual waste and incinerated — including the wax itself, a raw material that Europe imports in large quantities.

What we do

Wachswandel operates Germany's first collection and recycling system for candle wax. We place collection bins free of charge at cemeteries, parishes, retailers and restaurants, empty them regularly, and separate the material into its components: wax, plastic, aluminium, tinplate and glass. The wax is melted, filtered and cleaned, and returned to industry as a secondary raw material. The remaining fractions go into their own recycling streams.

Today we operate 51 collection bins across more than 30 partner sites. Our collection points accept all types of candles unsorted, including grave lights — the surrounding packaging is recycled as well. For our partners the service is free: we provide the bin, we empty it, and we take care of everything that comes out of it.

Why the economics work

Our input material costs nothing. Candle wax that is collected rather than bought gives recovered wax a structural cost advantage over virgin paraffin and stearin — an advantage no competitor working with new material can match. This is the core of our business model.

What we build from it

Alongside the raw material business we develop consumer products from our own recyclate: pillar candles, LED inserts for grave lights, wax granulate and partner editions produced together with social organisations. We also rent advertising space on the collection bins, which turns each bin into a small local media asset and helps finance the network.

Where we are going

We are currently building our own processing plant and scaling the collection network across Germany, with the longer-term goal of a European network — collection points that accept candle and grave light residues, and plants that recover wax and plastic before they are incinerated.

Regulatory developments support this direction. The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation introduces minimum recycled content requirements for plastic packaging from 2030, which turns documented, single-origin recyclate from a by-product into regulated demand.

Recognition

• Key2Circularity (Interreg) — selected as one of five companies from North Rhine-Westphalia

• 1st place, Social Entrepreneur Euskirchen

• Gründungsstipendium NRW

• Impact Factory / Anthropia

What we are looking for

Industrial buyers of recycled wax across Europe · partners who want to operate collection points in their own country or region · technology partners for separation, filtration and quality testing · cemetery operators, parishes and municipalities · research institutions working on recyclate quality and recycled content verification · investors and funding partners focused on circular economy and impact.

Contact: info@wachswandel.de · www.wachswandel.de