In the German City of Fulda Schmitt Recycling’s channel baling press, document shredders and hard disc shredders have been supplied and installed by equipment manufacturer, HSM.
It is a bit like Asterix: Schmitt Recycling in Fulda is a smaller medium-sized waste disposal business with approximately 35 employees.
Proprietor, Wolfgang Schmitt, explains that the company is surrounded by two competitors with an international background. The family-run recycling material company must therefore assert itself against strong competition. It achieves this on the one hand with with a strong emphasis on personal contact with the customer and, on the other hand, with an infrastructure, which focuses on performance and efficiency.
Schmitt, bases this strategy on HSM. In total, there are now three machines from HSM located on the 15,000 square metre business premises in the Fulda suburb Besges. From the “HSM Powerline HDS 230“ hard disc shredder through the “DuoShredder 6060“ document shredder to a “VK 12018 RFU“, the second largest channel baling press from the HSM range.
“HSM is the only supplier who provides the entire spectrum for a recycling operation, which we find to be a major advantage,” says Schmitt says. “We receive everything from one source.“
The entrepreneur from Fulda has personally looked around the HSM production facilities in southern Germany and has been convinced of the product depth and quality.
He has been using HSM products since company which was founded in the 90s; however, he does not always follow the ‘think big‘ principle, but instead acts in a conservative and considered way.
This had the disadvantage that the HSM products could no longer keep pace with the growth of the company in Fulda since the machines were designed for operations on a smaller scale. “We regularly purchased a new document shredder,” Schmitt concedes. “Eventually this was uneconomical and so we have addressed the subject properly.”.-
Since April 2015, Schmitt Recycling has been working with a large document shredder which is fed via an underfloor conveyor and which has a high throughput of up to 2.5 tonnes per hour.
The DuoShredder 6060 shreds documents together with files, the metal components are sorted magnetically. It is therefore no longer necessary for Wolfgang Schmitt to delegate an employee just to separate the paper from the files.
In addition, Schmitt values the additional security feature of his new document shredder: the small particle size of (10.5 x 40-76 millimetres) is a clear product advantage.
Schmitt’s Business Model
The recycling firm deals with everything that is too valuable to be destroyed: from scrap metal, old paper, plastics, ABS bumpers, old wood, through films and polystyrene to cables, metal and biological waste.
Schmitt purchases the materials, transports them to their own warehouses and sells them at the best possible time to recycling companies, e.g. to paper manufacturers. Paper waste makes up the lion‘s share of waste in the certified waste disposal company.
For example, large supermarket chains deliver pressed cardboard packaging and dump the contents of their roll-off containers in the warehouse with gates that are eight metres tall. 36 000 tonnes of old paper and cardboard packaging travel each year through the premises of Schmitt Recycling.
“The channel baling press is the heart of the company,” Schmitt emphasises. “When the channel baling press coughs, the entire company has a problem.”
Reliability is a very high criterion, especially as the Schmitt storage facilities for unpressed material are not very large. The channel baling press already at Schmitt Recycling was getting on a bit and breakdowns were becoming a more frequent cost factor.
Wolfgang Schmitt was forced to look around for a substitute for the medium term. Initially he looked at acquiring a used HSM channel baling press, but then the owner decided to keep that machine so, after extensive discussions in the family Board, Schmitt decided to install a new VK 12018 and travelled to the HSM production facilities in Salem.
“I was personally convinced of the quality, there was no doubt in my mind,” Schmitt says. “In addition, he looked at channel baling presses at HSM reference customers, which reinforced his already positive impression.”
Investing in the Future
Total investments of almost €750 000 are no small matter for a company like Schmitt’s, but the proprietor believes that only by investing can he assert himself in the market and, therefore, ensure a safe future for his employees.
Schmitt Recycling should be in exactly the right position with his decision in favour for the VK 12018. The machine arrived was installed and ready for operation within four days.
According to Schitt his company profits from the high capacity of the baling press. The theoretical throughput was increased by 50% compared to the old machine. Within a fraction, Schmitt Recycling is in the position to press a bale weighing approximately one tonne in two to three minutes.
The new bale size also has some advantages: the change from bales which were previously 80 x 100 centimetres to the size of 110 x 110 centimetres not only lowers the company’s wire costs, but also has logistic advantages.
Operating efficiency is improved due to fewer trips with the forklift and a lower storage space requirement as well as being able to load a single truck with 30 bales instead of 50.
Frequency Regulated
The frequency-regulated drive of the HSM press reduces the energy costs of the machine for the Fulda company by up to 30% compared to the previous model. And, as Schmitt is convinced, energy costs “will need our attention more and more in the future since they are an important cost factor”.
It also benefits him that the cleaning mode in the HSM machine works well because as a relatively small company, Schmitt often changes the fractions to deliver his products at maximum quality to the purchasers.
In this process, Schmitt values the flexibility of VK the 12018. He presses more than ten different materials with the baling press in addition to paper and cardboard packaging, there are also power cables and car bumpers.
Disc Shredder
The purchase of the HSM hard disc shredder, HSM Powerline HDS 230, is also a forward looking move. Wolfgang Schmitt is convinced that data security will become increasingly important in the future.
Hard disc data cannot be deleted completly and nobody can afford to allow his data to be read by an unauthorised party. Therefore, shredding the hard discs is “the only functioning method“ to make data unreadable.
In addition, it is a very elegant way of getting to the valuable raw materials which are hidden in each hard disc. How does HSM conduct itself after the sale of the machines? How is the service?
Schmitt says: “I have been accumulating experience with HSM for many years now and am satisfied with the service.”
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HSM Waste Baling Presses & Shredders on Show at IFAT
German waste baling press and shredder manufacturer, HSM will present not only its smallest fully automatic channel baling presses, but also one of the its largest, the HSM VK 12018 R FU at IFAT.
