Plastics processor RENOLIT has invested in the expansion of its hazardous materials warehouse at the Worms site. Michael Eller, Head of Material Supply and Disposal, and Björn Engelke, Project Manager, have now officially opened the facility with the symbolic opening of a valve.
Also present were Karsten Jänicke, Chief Executive Officer, Sven Behrendt, Executive Board Member, Dr. Michael Bätz, General Manager of the Worms production site, Alexander Doppler, Production Manager, and Ralf Poh, Head of Technology. The total investment volume in the new building and the plant technology amounts to over 10 million euros.
The previous tanks within the production building had to be removed due to legal requirements. The provisions of the Water Resources Act and the Ordinance on Installations for the Handling of Substances Hazardous to Water do not permit storage tanks for liquid raw materials in the new preparation area. For this reason, it was necessary to build a new storage facility for hazardous substances.
As a sustainable plastics processor, we rely on a modern hazardous materials warehouse – says Karsten Jänicke, CEO of RENOLIT. – With the modern and automated hazardous materials warehouse, we have not only strengthened our raw materials logistics in Worms, but also made our production more future-proof.
RENOLIT now has a second hazardous materials warehouse with a building measuring almost 1,200 square meters. The warehouse makes it possible to store all materials centrally. This means that the company no longer needs to transport the hazardous material containers with a forklift truck and can optimize the supply of production on the Worms site.
The new building has a total of 13 tanks for liquid hazardous substances as well as a room with eight loading stations for intermediate bulk containers (IBCs) and for solid hazardous substances in big bags and sacks. The old and new hazardous materials storage facilities are connected to each other. It is also equipped with pipelines to supply the preparation room with the raw materials from the tanks and IBCs. This eliminates the need to handle IBC goods in the preparation room.
In addition, the new hazardous materials storage facility also offers maximum safety. It is designed as a media-tight sump tray: The tank and IBC storage areas are below floor level and are fitted with a tested and certified foil seal. The sump prevents liquid hazardous substances or - in the event of a fire - extinguishing water from escaping into the environment.
In the course of the project, RENOLIT added the works road to the planning. This means that the tankers no longer have to reverse out of the unloading zone. In addition, this enabled the company to significantly exceed the high requirements of the Federal Immission Control Act (German: Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetz, abbreviated: BImSchG). As the approval procedure under the BImSchG is very complex because all relevant environmental impacts have to be examined, the construction period was extended to two years.
During the planning phase, RENOLIT had already thought about the future and factored in sufficient capacity: The plastics processor still has around 40 percent additional capacity for liquid hazardous substances as well as around 384 square meters of additional space for the storage of bulk materials and space for eleven additional tanks with a total volume of 275 cubic meters.
