Home: Issue 4 2009 › Waste not, want not
Waste not, want not
03/11/2009 | Channel: Recycling, Business
By reusing waste materials in new and useful forms, Kommunekemi cleverly turns a profit from what other companies discard
Boasting many years experience in utilising and recycling waste products, Kommunekemi offers the greatest supply of treatment services for hazardous and environmentally unsound waste in the Danish market. Proficient in processing waste from industry, institutions and households in the public and private sectors, the company gets maximum value out of hazardous waste. Kommunekemi also has large energy production and 20 per cent of its revenue comes from its production of district heating and electricity.
“As a waste management company, we provide services towards the industrial waste producers and collectors,” outlines Carsten Fich, Kommunekemi’s managing director. “We’ve been in the business since 1971 and were one of the first countries to have our kind of facilities. We collect and treat waste, and landfill waste products. Our treatment is mostly through high temperature incineration, using three rotary kilns. Sixty per cent of the waste we process comes from Denmark and 40 per cent from abroad – mostly Europe, although we receive waste from the Middle East. The US military bases in the Middle East have a great need for hazardous waste treatment and require a very reliable treatment and service provider, so we have a close co-operation.”
Explaining the company’s activities further, Carsten says: “In Denmark we take straw from the fields and use it for insulation and district heating. The ash produced by insulation plants has high contents of phosphate and heavy metal, therefore it’s a kind of hazardous waste. So, we treat it in order to turn it into a fertiliser. We call this process ‘from ash to cash’.”
Considering what sets Kommunekemi apart in the marketplace, Carsten discusses the company’s credentials: “We have a very high energy recovery rate, making it possible for us to sell a lot of energy, and we have large capacity on-site. We have Europe’s largest single capacity in fact, and we aim to treat 185,000 tonnes per year. Our storage capacity is large as well, especially for liquid waste, which means we’re able to provide capacity for clean-up projects, and so forth, within very short time frames. Additionally, we have direct access to the harbour, which means that if a ship arrives with liquid waste we can pump it directly from the ship into the plant – whereas many other companies have to load the waste from ships into trucks and drive it to the site.”
The business is focusing some of its attention on solid waste, and its treatment of such is kind to the environment, as Carsten reveals: “We’re investment significantly into a plant at the moment for pre-treatment of solid waste. We’re seeing more on the market today, so we’re shredding and continuously feeding it into a rotary kiln. That way we can use the energy content in the waste much better and, in that respect, we will not need support fuel anymore for our insulation process and so forth. We have less of an impact on climate through this.”
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One market attracting interest from Kommunekemi is the UK, as Carsten knows there are new regulations coming into force in the country that will provide an opportunity for the company to step in. “The European Union’s new landfill directive means hazardous waste isn’t allowed to be landfilled in the UK anymore, and that translates to us as arising market potential. The UK will need to ship some waste to the continent, as it doesn’t have the capacity to undertake everything itself. As a strategy, we’ll seek new markets where there is little or no incineration capacity, such as in the UK and Turkey.”
Carsten has no qualms about targeting the UK, despite the fact the country has been one of the worst hit countries in Europe as a result of the global recession, as he explains: “We’re not deterred from entering the UK market simply because the country needs a solution for its hazardous waste and it doesn’t possess the treatment capacity it’ll require. Regarding the recession, in Denmark and Norway we’re operating at the same level as prior to the financial problems although we can feel a decline in the markets of Sweden, Italy and Ireland – basically, it’s outside of Denmark where we’re noticing a downturn.”
With thoughts turning to how the business will develop, Carsten reveals that Kommunekemi has two long-term strategies for future ventures: “One is drying biomass; we’ll see power plants in Denmark and other countries needing biomass to substitute coal and other fossil fuels, but a lot of the biomass available is wet, as often it’s sludge from waste water or from farming. We would like to use our power to dry some of this biomass, so we can provide a product for the power plants that’s more carbon neutral. Second, if it can be incinerated we could retrieve the ash from the process and this would have high phosphate content. We’d perform the same trick as with retrieving ash from straw, by separating heavy metals to gain valuable phosphate. It’s a two-legged strategy, allowing us to produce dry biomass for power plants and turn the resulting ash into a phosphate fertiliser product.”
“As a waste management company, we provide services towards the industrial waste producers and collectors,” outlines Carsten Fich, Kommunekemi’s managing director. “We’ve been in the business since 1971 and were one of the first countries to have our kind of facilities. We collect and treat waste, and landfill waste products. Our treatment is mostly through high temperature incineration, using three rotary kilns. Sixty per cent of the waste we process comes from Denmark and 40 per cent from abroad – mostly Europe, although we receive waste from the Middle East. The US military bases in the Middle East have a great need for hazardous waste treatment and require a very reliable treatment and service provider, so we have a close co-operation.”
Explaining the company’s activities further, Carsten says: “In Denmark we take straw from the fields and use it for insulation and district heating. The ash produced by insulation plants has high contents of phosphate and heavy metal, therefore it’s a kind of hazardous waste. So, we treat it in order to turn it into a fertiliser. We call this process ‘from ash to cash’.”
Considering what sets Kommunekemi apart in the marketplace, Carsten discusses the company’s credentials: “We have a very high energy recovery rate, making it possible for us to sell a lot of energy, and we have large capacity on-site. We have Europe’s largest single capacity in fact, and we aim to treat 185,000 tonnes per year. Our storage capacity is large as well, especially for liquid waste, which means we’re able to provide capacity for clean-up projects, and so forth, within very short time frames. Additionally, we have direct access to the harbour, which means that if a ship arrives with liquid waste we can pump it directly from the ship into the plant – whereas many other companies have to load the waste from ships into trucks and drive it to the site.”
The business is focusing some of its attention on solid waste, and its treatment of such is kind to the environment, as Carsten reveals: “We’re investment significantly into a plant at the moment for pre-treatment of solid waste. We’re seeing more on the market today, so we’re shredding and continuously feeding it into a rotary kiln. That way we can use the energy content in the waste much better and, in that respect, we will not need support fuel anymore for our insulation process and so forth. We have less of an impact on climate through this.”
')";>One market attracting interest from Kommunekemi is the UK, as Carsten knows there are new regulations coming into force in the country that will provide an opportunity for the company to step in. “The European Union’s new landfill directive means hazardous waste isn’t allowed to be landfilled in the UK anymore, and that translates to us as arising market potential. The UK will need to ship some waste to the continent, as it doesn’t have the capacity to undertake everything itself. As a strategy, we’ll seek new markets where there is little or no incineration capacity, such as in the UK and Turkey.”
Carsten has no qualms about targeting the UK, despite the fact the country has been one of the worst hit countries in Europe as a result of the global recession, as he explains: “We’re not deterred from entering the UK market simply because the country needs a solution for its hazardous waste and it doesn’t possess the treatment capacity it’ll require. Regarding the recession, in Denmark and Norway we’re operating at the same level as prior to the financial problems although we can feel a decline in the markets of Sweden, Italy and Ireland – basically, it’s outside of Denmark where we’re noticing a downturn.”
With thoughts turning to how the business will develop, Carsten reveals that Kommunekemi has two long-term strategies for future ventures: “One is drying biomass; we’ll see power plants in Denmark and other countries needing biomass to substitute coal and other fossil fuels, but a lot of the biomass available is wet, as often it’s sludge from waste water or from farming. We would like to use our power to dry some of this biomass, so we can provide a product for the power plants that’s more carbon neutral. Second, if it can be incinerated we could retrieve the ash from the process and this would have high phosphate content. We’d perform the same trick as with retrieving ash from straw, by separating heavy metals to gain valuable phosphate. It’s a two-legged strategy, allowing us to produce dry biomass for power plants and turn the resulting ash into a phosphate fertiliser product.”
