31.10.2021
“Construction is getting underway, and we plan to take over the finished building in the spring of 2022,” says Ole-Rolf Dahlberg, who has headed Infinitum’s Northern Region for 16 years.
The new facility will be located in Bjerkvik, just a few kilometres from the facility Infinitum currently leases. The Bjerkvik facility handles all the beverage containers that are returned by customers north of Saltfjellet. At the facility, bottles and cans are separated and compressed into square bales.
Building smarter
Bring, which operates out of the neighbouring site, drives the bales of plastic and metal to Narvik. There they are put on a train and carried off for recycling. The plastics go to Veolia PET Norway, a brand-new recycling plant for plastic bottles, which is located right next to Infinitum’s main site in Lillestrøm. Aluminium cans are shipped to Novelis in the UK, which is the world’s largest recycler of aluminium from can to can.
“I’m really looking forward to moving into the new facility. After many years in operation, the equipment is starting to wear out. It will also be great to have the entire production line indoors, since we do get a bit of weather here in the North of Norway,” says Dahlberg with masterly understatement.
“Having the opportunity to influence how the new facility will be is fantastic,” he says. “After 16 years at Infinitum, I have gained a pretty good idea of what works well and what doesn’t. This time, we are building smarter and higher, so that we don’t need as much floor space,” he explains.
10–11 tonnes daily
“We handle about 10–11 tonnes of plastic and aluminium on a daily basis. There are some seasonal variations, but we have seen a huge increase in the volume of bottles and cans in the past two years. That’s why we are building for a slightly larger capacity. We are building for the future,” says Dahlberg.
Overall, Infinitum has experienced a 20 per cent increase in volume since 2019.
“People are generally good at returning their empty beverage containers and recovering the deposit. We are glad they do, because it means we can reuse the material for new bottles and cans as many times as possible,” concludes Ole-Rolf Dahlberg.
About the process:
- Construction is scheduled to start in mid-October 2021
- Infinitum takes over the completed building in the spring of 2022.
- Installation of the production line will start once the building shell has been taken over.
- Infinitum will install and test the production equipment in the autumn/winter of 2022/2023.
- The new facility will go into operation in the spring of 2023.
