Compacting success Geesinknorba

COMPACTING SUCCESS

Geesinknorba is Europe’s largest provider of refuse collection vehicles and waste compactors. Philip Yorke spoke to Zeki Bolat, the company’s marketing director about its pioneering ‘plug-in’ electric vehicles and the ground-breaking products set to be launched at the IFAT trade show in Munich this year.

Prior to their merger a few years ago, Geesink and Norba had more than 300 years of experience in waste management expertise between them. Today they form a formidable team that combines unrivalled engineering know-how with the ability to develop the world’s most innovative waste management solutions. Geesinknorba is headquartered in the Netherlands and recently became part of the multinational, Mutares AG industrial group. In 2011, Geesinknorba recorded sales of more than €100 million and currently employs around 500 people with over half of them located at its Netherlands headquarters in Emmeloord.

Geesinknorba offers a diverse range of refuse collection vehicles and advanced waste compactors for country-specific markets. Its flexible RCV bodies come in different sizes to fit any manufacturer’s chassis and can operate with different bin-lifts, including third-party systems. Geesinknorba’s European network of factories enables it to offer an exceptionally fast turnround of orders.

All Geesinknorba’s vehicle bodies are designed to be fully compatible with each other as well as with the chassis, bin-lifts and related products from other suppliers. The company provides the widest range of bodies in the waste management industry today and its highly skilled engineering teams are able to tailor them to meet the individual needs of its customers. In keep-

ing with its diverse vehicle body range, the company offers optional telemetrics and Geesinknorba lifting options that are available either integrated or stand-alone.

Delivering innovative, eco-friendly solutions

Continuously at the forefront of waste management technology, Geesinknorba achieved another ‘first’ with its ‘plug-in’ electric vehicles when they were initially launched in Sweden. Sales of this advanced eco-friendly range have surged since then and continuous development and operational refinements have kept the company ahead of any attempts by its competitors to adopt the same technology. Geesink’s plug-in vehicles are the world’s first to use electrical power to operate the energythirsty lifting, crushing, compacting and tipping systems of refuse collection vehicles. These technologically advanced vehicles were developed with two main objectives in mind: to reduce carbon emissions and the operating costs for operators by reducing overall energy bills.

These special vehicles offer many additional environmental and operational benefits too, as Mr Bolat explained, “Our latest range of ‘plug-in’ vehicles have become our flagship products. This hybrid unit offers significant fuel saving and noise reduction and is cleaner and greener in every respect compared to traditional vehicles. In Paris they have been a huge success with both operators and the general public alike as the driver can switch off the engine when collecting refuse at 5am, thereby avoiding waking local inhabitants. In fact, our ‘plugin’ machines are virtually silent in operation. The same success has been repeated in Serano and in Barcelona in Spain as well as with many other capital cities in Europe.

“The operators also benefit from the availability of cheap, off-peak, night time supplies of electricity for their vehicles, reducing still further their operating costs. Savings can be significant and as much as 35 per cent per year for an average size vehicle. Most of our customers are either local government agencies or waste management contractors. Furthermore, our

eco-friendly ‘multifraction’ vehicles are divided into four compartments which enables them to collect sorted waste products easily and efficiently. This means that they can collect glass, plastic, paper and food waste during one tour and keep them sorted into their relevant compartments for processing.”

Mr Bolat added, “These pioneering developments have continued apace at Geesinknorba and we launched an entirely new range of waste management concepts at the international trade show, ‘IFAT’, in Munich during the second week of March this year. This will silence once and for all those of our competitors who have been trying to give us some bad press during the takeover of Geesinknorba by Mutares AG, the Munichbased industrial conglomerate!”

Technology that goes from strength to strength

Geesinknorba is well known for its proactive stance when it comes to meeting new challenges posed by fast-moving changes in the waste management market. The company has developed a number of ‘breakthrough’ products recently including an all-new underground container system and a GEC vehicle that takes bulky waste and very large containers of up to 5 cubic metres. This makes it the world’s most efficient and flexible ‘multifractional unit’ vehicle on the market today.

In addition, the company has also developed and launched yet another technologically advanced product: the multi-functional

Combi-spilt hoist. This unique hoist can operate in open back mode, in trade mode with two locked lifts, or in auto combi-split mode, and operators can switch between them in an instant. Yet its performance in any of these operational modes rivals that of any single-mode vehicle. Furthermore, in automatic split-mode it matches the lifting speeds of any single, dedicated split-lift. This advanced hoist is fully integrated with the Geesinknorba ‘A’ bodies, which makes for greater efficiency. What’s more, the latest design offers increased tipping angles for an even cleaner bin discharge. For further information about Geesinknorba products, go to: www.geesinknorba.com n