OAO Combine-45 has completed the installation of a system for the full processing of production waste

OAO Combine-45 has completed the installation and operation at all its factories of production waste processing equipment. From now on, the enterprise will be able to use practically all its processed waste in its manufacturing process. In the light of increased requirements from the city administration for ecological inspection, OAO Combine-45 is once again the first to enter its market by completely excluding the possibility of environmental pollution during production.

As we were told by Sergei Sopyanik, the technical director of the enterprise, the main waste from concrete production is formed after the special means for transporting the concrete and the mortar has been washed down and at the moment when it is reloaded at the factory. Due to the huge volumes of output, the amount of waste collected from all OAO Combine-45 factories is impressive — in the region of 30,000 cubic metres a year. For the purposes of comparison, that is twelve football pitches covered with a half-metre layer. The cost of utilizing the waste works out on average around 400 roubles a cubic metre. Thus the enterprise’s annual expenditure on waste utilization could amount to 12 million roubles, or 2 million roubles per individual factory. Bearing in mind that the cost of one facility for waste processing amounts to about 2.5 million roubles, the repayment period for enterprise expenditure on ecological control is a little over a year.

Work on installing special equipment for waste processing at OAO Combine-45 began in 2004. Then equipment of our own manufacture, but analogous to that used in Finland under the name Vanny (bathes), was installed at a number of factories. The waste is placed in special containers where the components of the concrete separate by sedimentation and are then fed back into production in small proportions. But this method does not ensure the complete processing of the liquid cement which contains a number of ecologically harmful properties that as the result of utilization could end up polluting the environment.

So in 2005, it was decided to install a system that would completely process the waste and send it back into production Specialists from the company held a tender for the supply of such a system from the advanced European manufacturers. The tender was won by Liebherr, whose equipment took full account of the requirements of our specialists. Currently, three such facilities have been purchased and installed at the largest Combine-45 factories — the Khimichesky, the Parnas and the Krylenko. The total cost in investments for creating the waste-processing system has amounted to around $300,000.

These facilities can process up to 12 cubic metres of concrete an hour. The principle on which they work is to ensure the thorough washing of the concrete and the complete division of its component materials. Sand and gravel, fully washed, can be returned to production. The remaining liquid cement is continually shaken and diluted in small proportions with water — approximately 15-20% — and also goes into production having absolutely no effect on the quality of the concrete. In this way, waste products from production are completely excluded from the environment or from getting into the communal sewage system.

Sergei Sopyanik made the point that according to data from the enterprise, it was one of the first on its market to introduce such advanced European facilities. Shortly Combine-45 is to replace the waste-processing equipment at all its factories. All new factories will be included in the utilization system.

OAO Combine-45 (LSR Group) is the largest network of factories producing saleable concrete and mortars in St. Petersburg. It includes six factories. The enterprise provides supplies for all types of building sites — residential, industrial, commercial and road-building, and has delivered its products to such places as: Ladoga Station, the Russian State Historical Archives Building Complex, the Yugo-Zapadnye Cleaning Rooms, the State Hermitage Depository, major road repair sites on the Sadovaya Ulitsa and Prospekt Engels, the Vantov Bridge bypass in line with Prospekt Obukhovskaya Oborona, the building of a dam and various sections of the St. Petersburg Ring Road.