SWARCO Road Marking Systems is the world’s biggest system provider for road markings. Their quality products and services guide traffic safely from A to B during the day and especially at night. Orwak balers now solve their plastic packaging challenge.
It all started in 1969 with the founder Manfred Swarovski’s first glass bead factory in Amstetten, Austria, where reflective glass beads were produced from recycled window glass. In 2022, the company moved to the SWARCO Global Glass Beads Technology Center in Neufurth – the world’s most modern production facility for reflective glass beads.
SWARCO has additional production sites for road marking systems for the industrial sector in Europe and the USA. More than 5300 employees in 80+ companies worldwide work to make traveling safer, faster, more comfortable and more environmentally friendly and thus increase the quality of life.
Two ORWAK POWER 3420 balers were installed in the hall where the raw materials are delivered and where most of the packaging material is collected.
Containers filled up quickly with plastic packaging
A lot of plastic packaging is handled on site when raw materials are delivered to Neufurth. The packaging material can be separated into two factions:
- Big bags made of polypropylene
- Unprinted, transparent LDPE and LLDPE film
These valuable raw materials were previously collected separately in two containers, which often filled up quickly. It meant countless collections and expensive container rentals. These valuable resources did not generate a proper income.
On the contrary, SWARCO, had to pay waste fees for the disposal of them. There is little space available at the recycling point. Therefore, frequent container pickups were necessary, and the waste costs became increasingly higher.
Orwak balers turn waste into value
Interzero, recycling solution provider and the Orwak distributor in Austria, helped SWARCO with a much better setup. Two ORWAK POWER 3420 balers were installed in the hall where the raw materials are delivered and where most of the packaging material is collected. Martina Dobner, CSR Specialist at SWARCO comments:
“The balers were very well received by our staff right from the start. The fractions are sorted according to type, and the amount of plastic packaging wrongly discarded as mixed waste is significantly reduced. It is easy and safe to use the balers and meanwhile, colleagues at other locations also want to install these balers.”
Inspired and convinced by successful installations
Another industrial company in the region already had an Orwak baler installed and served as a good reference. The valuable exchange of experiences and the great advice ultimately convinced the SWARCO team to purchase two ORWAK POWER 3420 balers for the Neufurth site. It was important to them to start with the waste factions that caused the most headaches. SWARCO gained valuable experience in the first phase and the commitment and acceptance from the staff was and is the most important success factor.
SWARCO ECO-TEC, another company in the SWARCO Road Marking Systems Division, generates a lot of cardboard and paper. They were looking for a better solution to reduce collections and turn waste into value and now an Orwak baler has also been installed there.
Many benefits with the new baler solution
+ Fewer collections and reduced waste transport costs
+ Container rent savings
+ Waste costs are turned into income
+ Improved logistics; the packaging material is compacted at source
“It has also raised employee awareness, that waste can be a valuable raw material. We are happy with the new solution and would definitely choose it again. We can recommend Interzero as a partner as they provide great advice and knowledge transfer, and the contact is friendly, quick and uncomplicated!”, Martina Dobner concludes.