Koehler Paper, a Koehler Group company, is hereby announcing that Germany’s biggest amusement park, Europa‐Park, has begun using the company’s innovative Blue4est thermal paper. The blue receipt paper is also marketed under the name “Ökobon” in Germany and is durable, sustainable, recyclable, and guaranteed to be free of chemically reactive components.
As a solid crowd‐puller known for its ability to innovate continuously, Europa‐Park wows just under 5.7 million visitors from all over the world every year. And, since August, the amusement park has been using the new blue receipt paper from Koehler at its 95‐hectare facilities in Rust, at the edge of the Black Forest.
Although fun and variety are the main focus at Europa‐Park, the family‐run enterprise that employs just under 4,450 people attaches enormous importance to sustainability as well. Accordingly, the company uses a comprehensive and integral approach and continuously improves its environmental, financial, and social sustainability.
In fact, sustainability has always been part of the amusement park’s DNA and is an indispensable part of its mission statement. Using the blue Koehler receipt paper is one of the ways in which Europa‐Park is taking its customers’ interest in increased sustainability seriously.
Smooth introduction of Koehler’s product at all 600 Europa‐Park cash registers
In most cases, traditional receipt paper cannot be disposed of as waste paper but is sorted into residual waste instead. This is not the case with the blue thermal paper from Koehler that Europa‐Park has been using at its 600 cash registers since August of this year.
Willy Früh, director thermal paper division at Koehler, comments: “Users who switch over to our sustainable Blue4est thermal paper usually do not have to incur any additional investment costs. Simply put, the environmentally friendly receipt works with most printers on the market.” It should come as no surprise then that the process of switching the cash register systems at Europa‐Park to the new paper went perfectly smoothly.
Chemistry replaced by Physics as the right choice for the environment
Koehler is an industry leader in thermal paper and started investing in developing an environmentally friendly alternative years ago. Traditional receipt paper contains small amounts of chemical color developers, so Koehler developed Blue4est to offer instead a thermal paper that would work on conventional thermal receipt printers without color developers. The company replaced the traditional chemical reaction with a physical reaction without fading printout, even when exposed to light or moisture.
All of this makes the paper extremely durable so that it can be retained for up to 35 years in cases where receipts need to be used for documentation purposes. These environmentally friendly thermal paper receipts are instantly recognizable by their color, enabling users to dispose of them correctly and permanently. The raw material for the paper comes from FSC‐certified sources. In addition, Blue4est is the first thermal paper to be approved for direct contact with food.
