- .A.S.A. Abfall Service has created a secondary raw material brand for used oil, known as .A.S.A. Lube
- Urban Mining instead of recycling – extracting value out of waste
Himberg/Elsteraue, August, 05 2014. Urban Mining is the new trend – extracting resources from anthropogenic deposits, exploring and processing secondary raw materials. What is currently in vogue for copper has been a standard practice since the 1990's for glass and paper and can be extended to numerous other fields
Created for highest requirements
.A.S.A. Lube on Track
.A.S.A. Abfall Service AG, the biggest waste management company in CEE with headquarters in Vienna, collects used oil in Austria for processing and re-use. And yet oil as a secondary raw material is not a second choice product. Due to its material properties it can be used and subjected to the highest quality requirements, for example, in professional motor sports. .A.S.A. Abfall Service AG has now given its product a name, for the first time, secondary raw material oil is delivered to the customers as a brand – .A.S.A. Lube. „Secondary raw materials are no longer considered second choice products, they are already first choice material. In many areas secondary raw materials can offer excellent quality and reduce the dependency on primary resource markets“ states Dr. Bertram Laub, responsible group-wide for Material Management.
New rail tank wagons for the environmentally friendly transport
1 litre of used oil converts to 0.7 litres of base oil
Crude oil is becoming scarce; with the help of innovative processes high quality base oil for use in the production of lubricants for modern high-performance combustion engines can be distilled from used oil. Energy consumption is just half of that needed for lubricant production from crude oil. From 1 litre of used oil 0.7 litres of „new“ base oil for engines, gears and hydraulics is produced. The quality is much higher than that of base oils produced from crude oil.
Approximately 3 million tons of used oil are collected yearly in the European Union, yet currently more than half of the collected amount is still incinerated rather than recycled. More than 40,000 tons of used oil are collected yearly in Austria and more than 90% of used oil collected by market leader .A.S.A. is already being recycled.
Urban Mining, a new recycling
A handshake for new resources
f.l.t.r.: Jens Wendland (Baufeld-Öl GmbH, Germany), Dr. Bertram Laub (.A.S.A. Abfall Service AG, Austria), DI Andreas Schüppel (Puralube Inc, USA), Dr. Sönke Möhr (Puralube GmbH, Germany)
Urban Mining, a modern recycling process, decreases the dependency on primary market resources and reduces costs, as well as environmental pollution. Puralube – the international refinery partner of .A.S.A., has already processed 1 million tons of used oil into high quality base lubricating oil. „Apart from an important contribution to resource extraction, we were able to save 3 million tons of CO2 emissions and hence contribute to world climate protection“ said Dr. Sönke Möhr, Puralube GmbH.
Due to the increasing demand for base lubrication oil out of used oil, .A.S.A. has introduced 14 new rail tank wagons for the environmentally friendly transport of the used oil to the refinery. 1.2 million litres of used oil can be transported for recycling with these wagons at one time.
.A.S.A. Group, with headquarters in Himberg near Vienna, is the biggest waste management company in CEE and reached a turnover of 354 million euro in 2013. The company employs around 4,400 employees, with approximately 3,800 of those in Eastern Europe.