Top: Tim Cusack (left), CEO of Western Australia Return Recycle Renew (WARRRL), and Chris Gusenzow (right), Western Australia General Manager at REMONDIS, are ready for the launch.
Bottom: Less litter and more recycling with Containers for Change.

Communities in Western Australia are set to become cleaner and greener thanks to a new contract with REMONDIS. The scheme coordinator, WA Return Recycle Renew, recently selected our company to collect and process non-glass containers in Perth, Peel and Wheatbelt as part of Containers for Change, Western Australia’s new container deposit scheme.

This initiative encourages local residents to take empty beverage containers to a refund point by paying out AUD 10 cents for every eligible drink container returned. The container deposit scheme is an initiative which first started in South Australia in 1977. 

Over the life of the contract, REMONDIS will help to reduce littering and landfilling and increase recycling by collecting some 7,500 tonnes or 550 million containers each year – creating a big change in this beautiful corner of the world.

The commencement date of Containers for Change was delayed due to COVID-19 and will now launch on 01 October 2020. Only two Australian states are yet to adopt a container deposit scheme, with both the Victorian and Tasmanian schemes planned to be introduced in the next 3 years.

Visit Containers for Change to learn more about this exciting initiative.

Transdev and REMONDIS partnering for cleaner transportation.

When we work together, we are stronger. Another example of how our group lives up to this maxim can be found in Australia where Transdev Australasia and REMONDIS Australia have joined forces. Going forward, REMONDIS will manage 200 tonnes of refuse and recyclables each month from public transport infrastructure operated by Transdev. REMONDIS will oversee recycling management across Australia at 60 sites, including 29 Sydney ferries, in the next few years. The two companies are not resting on their laurels either: REMONDIS is working closely to support Transdev, a global mobility operator and integrator that is part of the RETHMANN Group, in future bids. Did you know that Transdev operates seven modes of public transport across Australia and New Zealand, including commuter trains, buses, coaches, ferries and Sydney's brand-new light rail system?

Our recycling centres stand ready to close the loop for more material in Sweden.

REMONDIS is diversifying in Sweden too: once a market where we specialised in collecting and pre-treating used packaging, today we are developing our operations in three sectors – packaging collection, municipal household refuse collection and commercial and industrial refuse collection. And our efforts are bearing fruit: a glass collection contract in the south/west of Sweden that we have run for several years on behalf of the Swedish Glass Collection Service (SGÅ) has been expanded. With effect from 1 October 2020, the agreement will also include Stockholm, Västra Götaland and Värmland - making REMONDIS Sweden’s leading glass collection company with 110,000 tonnes per year or 60 per cent of all glass recycled in Sweden.  

Every drop matters: Inside a REMONDIS Drobin Komunalna water plant.

One such example is REMONDIS Drobin Komunalna Sp. z.o.o., a Public Private Partnership (PPP) between REMONDIS (49.9%) and the town of Drobin (50.1%) that has existed since 2006. Providing 8,100 residents with drinking water, the PPP also plans, builds and operates deep wells, waterworks and drinking water pipelines, along with sewage treatment facilities and wastewater pipelines. In addition to treating 86,000 m³ of wastewater each year, the PPP also cleans the town, its streets and green spaces and manages refuse.

Some 14,000 people living in the central Polish community of Trzemeszno are also benefiting from better drinking water supply and wastewater management under the terms of a 25-year contract. REMONDIS Aqua Trzemeszno Sp. z.o.o. (REMONDIS stake: 40%) began providing these services – including drinking water pipelines 244 km in length, six wells and 520,000 m³ of drinking water produced annually - in 2014. The PPP’s sewage treatment plants also have the capacity to treat 280,000 m³ per year.

A collection vehicle gets ready to call in the village of Sivin.

Today, 700,000 of Mordovia's 800,000 residents are connected to the modern household refuse management system. Along with the city of Saransk, collection infrastructure has been established in 374 rural settlements.

Other rural communities in the region are gradually being connected to the recycling management system, e.g. 32 villages with 7,500 residents had new containers installed and collection services added with effect from 1 May 2020.

Another 152 rural communities in the region with another 22,500 residents will be connected to the REMONDIS household refuse network from August and September. This will be the first time that refuse collection containers have been installed and regular household refuse collections have begun.

Videos 1 and 2 showcase organised and clean municipal recycling management in the villages of Sivin and Parapino. Both village residents and local government officials are thrilled with these services and exceptionally grateful about this new infrastructure. The villages had become much cleaner.  Video 1 and  Video 2

Video 3 shows the importance of regular and professional recycling management during the pandemic in particular. Watch this video about the day-to-day work of REMONDIS Saransk at container collection sites in Saransk: Container sites are cleaned regularly, containers are constantly disinfected and residual refuse bins are emptied daily. Video 3

REMONDIS’s new treatment site in Minsk from a birds-eye perspective.

REMONDIS has also expanded its recycling capabilities for different material streams in Belarus, recently commissioning a new facility in the village of Sinilo, around 10 km from the capital, Minsk. The site can handle 50,000 tonnes of construction material and 12,000 tonnes of green and wood material each year. The construction material stream includes concrete, brick scrap, construction timber and mineral refuse, which is mainly turned into products for use in road construction, landscaping and concrete manufacturing. Some 75 per cent of the green and wood refuse is compostable organic material used in agriculture, horticulture and landscaping, with the other 25 per cent turned into alternative fuel in the form of wood chips sold to small and medium-sized companies and local authority facilities.

Dauren Karipov (on the right in the first image and on the left in the second image), the Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Germany, Torsten Weber (right on the second image), Managing Director Central and Eastern Europe at REMONDIS, and Attila-Tibor Bogos (left on the first image), Assistant to Torsten Weber, during a visit to the modern paper sorting facility in Berlin.

REMONDIS was recently honoured with a visit from the Kazakh Ambassador to Germany, Dauren Karipov, to our branch in Berlin, which included a stop by our modern paper sorting facility. In a conversation, Torsten Weber, REMONDIS’s Managing Director for Central and Eastern Europe, discussed with the Ambassador the importance of resource conservation, recycling and state-of-the-art technologies.