Waste recycling at M. Jürgensen
What actually happens to our waste? An insight into the recycling of commercial waste at M. Jürgensen. Continue reading
Environmentally sound management and production requires, among many other aspects, a responsible approach to waste and its disposal. Using M. Jürgensen as an example, we provide a brief insight into what happens to the waste at our site in Sörup.
M. Jürgensen has been working with REMONDIS, a specialist waste management company, for many years. With 135 employees, REMONDIS has been operating a transfer station with various pre-treatment facilities on an area of 7.5 hectares in Schleswig since 1984. Among other things, 4,000 tonnes of paper, 9,000 tonnes of mixed waste and 12,000 tonnes of waste wood end up here every year.
At M. Jürgensen, 11 tonnes of waste paper per year first go into blue plastic bins and then into a paper press provided by REMONDIS, where they are pressed into bales. These bales are collected, opened, shredded and pressed into larger blocks again by REMONDIS in a pre-treatment plant. These blocks are then marketed to the paper industry, which uses them to make new paper.
Around 44 tonnes of mixed waste are temporarily stored in red plastic bins at M. Jürgensen each year and then transferred to a REMONDIS collection container. The contents are brought to Schleswig and pre-sorted according to size. The waste is then transported to special pre-treatment plants which remove the recyclable materials such as metal, paper and foil from the waste. The rest is thermally recycled to produce electricity and heat.
Approximately 57 tonnes of waste wood per year also end up in Schleswig. There, the wood is crushed in a mobile pre-treatment plant and foreign parts such as metal or plastic are separated out. The crushed material is then used to create new chipboard or ends up in so-called combined heat and power plants, which come under the category of regenerative and renewable heat generators.
The annual waste volume of approximately 910 tonnes depends heavily on production capacity utilisation. Furnace slag, dust and oily waste make up the largest fraction, together accounting for 61 per cent of the total. Among the aqueous waste, the machining emulsions present the biggest disposal challenge with 65 tonnes. A report on the recycling of this waste follows.
Photo „Mobile pre-treatment plant for waste wood“: © M. Jürgensen