About: Peter Meissner

KUKA AG, headquartered in Augsburg, is one of the world’s leading suppliers of intelligent robotics, plant and system technology. To ensure that internal waste disposal at the headquarters in Augsburg is efficient and modern in the future, investments are being made in this area and the waste disposal concept developed by ELOGplan is being rolled out. At the end of the year, the disposal centre will go into operation, after which tugger trains will be installed for disposal logistics and standardised multifunctional containers (MFB) will be used to collect waste at the points of generation.

Based on the MFB designed by BÜCHL, some site-specific adjustments were made to the container for KUKA and tested in a pilot operation. KUKA was convinced of the advantages of the container and ordered around 170 of the high-quality containers from ELOGplan. The MFBs will be manufactured in batches at a specialist company in the coming months and will be used in Augsburg from 2024.

A youth group from Tanzania also visited our company as part of a youth exchange. BÜCHL Innovation Manager and ELOGplan Managing Director Dieter Friedrich co-organised this youth exchange. The aim of the visit to BÜCHL was an exchange on the topics of circular economy and sustainability. “It is very important and valuable to look beyond the ‘German edge of the plate’, especially when it comes to these topics, and to broaden one’s horizons,” says Friedrich.

Prof. Reinhard Büchl hat für die Jugendgruppe zudem einen Vortrag an der Technischen Hochschule Ingolstadt gehalten und mit den Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer diskutiert. Im Anschluss überreichte Prof. Büchl stellvertretend für die BÜCHL Foundation eine Spende über 1.500 €.

The money will be used for the Kimambila project in Tanzania. In addition to reforestation, a training centre for the deaf is being built there and wells are being drilled to improve the hygienic situation of the rural population.

Caption: Reinhard Büchl hands over the donation to George Pindua

Ingolstadt, 31.03.2023

What will the circular economy of the future look like? What does sustainable circular economy mean? Which sustainability solutions does the BÜCHL Group implement in concrete terms?

These and other questions were on the agenda of the two-hour expert discussion between Roland Weigert – State Secretary in the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy – other representatives from the Ministry and the BÜCHL Group, represented by Reinhard Büchl, Iris Büchl, Reinhard Büchl sen. and Michael Tretter.

The representatives from the ministry emphasized the importance of medium-sized companies as drivers of innovation and sustainability – BÜCHL is a prime example and pioneer of this.

Resource, logistics, climate and digitalisation skills are needed for a sustainable circular economy. The BÜCHL Group combines these competencies under one roof. In this way, holistic solutions can be created, such as the specially developed software for digitizing disposal processes CLEVER WASTE®, the ELOG SYSTEM 4.0, a complete solution for internal disposal logistics, or the BÜCHL climate strategy CERO2WASTE.

The participants agreed that further discussions will follow in order to go into the individual aspects in more detail.

The BÜCHL Group will soon publish more about the climate strategy CERO2WASTE.

Caption: Reinhard Büchl sen., Reinhard Büchl, Roland Weigert, Michael Tretter (v.l.)

Foto: StMWi

Prof. Reinhard Büchl celebrated his 75th birthday on 25.09. Reinhard Büchl has developed the family business into a successful Group with new ideas, innovative projects, and vision for more than 50 years – and always with a focus on sustainability and environmental protection. Reason enough to present the milestones of success: 1987 BÜCHL Disposal Consultation was founded by him (now: www.ELOGplan.com); 1993 was the start of a very successful cooperation up to the present with independent waste management companies (www.logex.de), 1997 organic waste collection and recycling started as a pilot project  in Ingolstadt (now included in www.bioin-gmbh.de) and one year later passenger car prototype disassembly (now www.priorec.de). BÜCHL HUNGARIA an industrial waste management company is very successful through his commitment since 1999/2000 (www.buechl.hu). After handing over the operative business to the 3rd generation Reinhard Büchl built up the new Institute for Sustainability from 2017 (www.inas-institut.de) and up to the present supports strategic projects in the Group such as digitalisation www.cleverwaste.de). Not least, Reinhard Büchl has also shaped the branch: as President of the VBS (Bavarian Waste Management Association), Speaker for the Cluster of Environmental Technologies Bavaria, in the DIHK (Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry), and the VDI (The Association of German Engineers). Reinhard Büchl is closely linked with the TH Ingolstadt (Technical University of Ingolstadt) in Research and Teaching and is continuing to develop innovative ideas – also for the BÜCHL Group.

A new transportable container system for airbag destruction, designed and built by ELOGplan, is ready to work after final tests in January 2019. Based on a 20 ft sea container ELOGplan designed an integrated system which includes the ignition unit, a safe and sound-proof destruction box, the air ventilation system as well as working space and capacities for transport of separated kinds of waste. The number of airbags to destruct is increasing every year: garages, dismantling centres for EOLV and car manufacturers get airbags in different types and from different producers. They have to dispose these products fulfilling the legal requirements, especially for the explosives as well as health, safety and environment. The new mobile system guarantees a safe airbag destruction by minimization risks, reducing costs and avoiding packaging and transport. Together with other BÜCHL Group companies, ELOGplan offers these service at first in Germany. An international service is planned if customers or service partners are interested in.

Due to the expected growth of e-mobility there will be huge challenges in storage, packaging, transport and recycling of used high voltage and lithium batteries. ELOGplan as a new member of BEM-Association (Federal Association of E-Mobility – englisch prüfen bitte!) is very interested to point out, that these aspects are really important to create a sustainable life cycle process for used batteries and will be active in these fields. Following their contribution of SAFIR R&D project (see news from August 2016) the strategy of ELOGplan is to offer planning, consulting and training services to producers, customers and public alongside the life cycle of used batteries.

After 70 years on the move, Reinhard Büchl took a short break on 25th September in the Oldtimer Hotel in Ingolstadt, along with friends and companies, long-standing customers and business partners. This was the right setting for celebrating this special birthday and for making it clear once again that Reinhard Büchl has an effect on many issues and, in particular, inspires people. After his very successful work as an imaginative and innovative entrepreneur, as a long-standing association and cluster spokesman, as a still active university lecturer and professor and after a successful handover of the Group to the next generation, there are new challenges for Reinhard Büchl: both in the charitable family foundation BÜCHL Foundation gGmbH and in the newly established “Institute for Applied Sustainability, INAS GmbH”, an institute attached to TH Ingolstadt.

ELOGplan is offering in its business unit REGION 10 SEMINAR within the framework of the new Commercial Waste Ordinance (GewAbfV) for waste generators and waste disposers targeted, practice-oriented half-day workshops designed to help implement the new ordinance.

The Commercial Waste Ordinance (GewAbfV) enforced on August 1, 2017 obligates all waste generators to comprehensively separate their waste materials and to recycle them type sorted to the largest extent possible. The aim of the legislator is to generate even more renewable resources from the approx. 6 million tons of mixed commercial waste. The stricter separation of waste involves many technical, logistical and economic issues. New container systems, other logistics solutions and extensive, legally required documentation in particular result in additional expenditure. ELOGplan training programs illustrate how waste generators and waste disposers can respond to these challenges.

In May 2017, a framework agreement was concluded between the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft and its project group IWKS of the Institute for Silicate Research as well as ELOGplan GmbH. The agreement defines a project-specific collaboration in the fields of planning, research and implementation of innovative disposal concepts. With this, national and international projects can be realized for the benefit of both partners, which are required for the scientific foundations, research results and process-specific know-how in the treatment of waste streams as well as the operative experience and practical knowledge in disposal logistics as well as the implementation of disposal projects.

Reinhard Büchl was appointed “Honorary Professor” within the framework of the graduation ceremony of the Technical University of Ingolstadt (THI) on May 19, 2017 at the THI campus.  This title not only distinguishes his many years of service as honorary senator and former chairman of the THI University Council, but the 12 years he has served as a lecturer at the THI.  Reinhard Büchl will also be teaching in his appointment area “Sustainable Resource Management” at the THI Business School in the winter semester 2017/2018. Like only few businesspeople in the recycling industry, Reinhard Büchl not only combines his many decades of sustainable business activity focusing on the fields of environmental protection, preservation of resources and recycling, but also with several innovative developments and numerous research activities. His personal experience is not just for the benefit of  the corporate development of BÜCHL Entsorgungswirtschaft GmbH, but is also put to use especially in the national and international projects of the Planungs- und Beratungsgesellschaft ELOGplan GmbH, which was founded by Reinhard Büchl 30 years ago. The close connection between research, education, planning, disposal and recycling is and shall remain one of the foundations of the success of the BÜCHL Group.