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OCO H. Weber GmbH & Co. KG is a family-run specialised waste management company in the heart of Baden-Württemberg. For four generations, the company has been processing natural raw materials for economically viable reuse. One division of the company – ORICO in Appenweier – specialises in the collection and processing of green waste and waste wood. The company has relied on Komptech’s robust machines and reliable service for around 20 years.

The company site in Appenweier is located in the Ortenau district, the largest district between the Rhine and the Black Forest. You should know this before visiting the ORICO site, because everything here is big. More than a dozen open compost heaps, around 40 metres long and 3.5 metres high, are lined up close together on the 14-hectare open-air site. In between are mounds of bark mulch or wood chips. The plant is designed to process 75,000 tonnes of green waste and natural wood residues per year, with around 30,000 tonnes coming from the Ortenau district, 10,000 tonnes from the Emmendingen district and a further 10,000 tonnes from the Zollernalb district. It is a rural region and a lot of green waste is produced here. “We do the best business with our quality-assured bark mulch for gardening and landscaping,” explains company boss Joshua Weber. ORICO’s woody biomass is also in high demand. It accounts for around 30 per cent of the input and, after processing, is sent to the surrounding combined heat and power plants for energy recovery.

SUITABLE FOR ORGANIC CULTIVATION

The “ORICO service department”, as Weber calls it, also produces bark humus, green waste compost and potting and plant soils. Everything is RAL-certified and therefore suitable for organic cultivation. “The quality requirements on the market are extremely high, but the prices need to be low,” says Weber. With this balancing act, the technical equipment at the recycling centre simply has to be right. When it comes to shredding and screening, ORICO relies on Komptech machines throughout: a slow-running Crambo 5200 and the high-speed Axtor 4510 take care of the coarse pre-shredding and fine shredding of the input material. The Multistar One and XL3 star screens and, more recently, the new Multistar L3 KP are used for precise screening. According to Weber, star screen technology is particularly suitable for fractionating biomass, compost and wood. By simply adjusting the screen section, defined useful fractions in grain sizes 0-10, 0-20, 15-40 and 20-200 can be separated. Otherwise, only bucket loaders can be seen in action on the company premises. “Komptech machines are the central component of our processing plant. They ensure efficient, high-quality processing of our products,” says the plant manager with satisfaction.

RESIDUAL MATERIALS FROM THE BLACKWOOD SAW MILLS

Green waste processing accounts for around 15 per cent of the family business’s total turnover. The largest part of the waste disposal service comprises the collection and processing of food and meat waste. This is also where OCO H. Weber GmbH has its roots. In the 1960s, company founder Helmut Weber had the idea of collecting calf stomachs, hides, skins and bones from smaller butchers in the region and putting them to good use. Today, OCO’s customers include well-known companies from the meat processing, food production and food retail sectors. They come from the entire Upper Rhine region and neighbouring Alsace. The “green” recycling segment was added a few years ago. Joshua Weber: “Making an active contribution to a sustainable circular economy is at the heart of our company.” In view of the nearby Black Forest with its wood processing companies, the expansion of the company in the direction of sawmill by-products was obvious. A large number of sawmills in the region now regularly unload their waste materials at ORICO. Added to this is the green waste from municipal and private waste disposal companies, from gardening and landscaping and from private households.

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