A large city and an important business centre
Düsseldorf has always been a special city. This town on the estuary of the Düssel, a small tributary of the River Rhine, was given the right to call itself a city way back in 1288. Since the end of the 14th Century, Düsseldorf has always been the seat of government for some country or principality and today, it is home to the state parliament of Germany’s most densely populated state, North Rhine-Westphalia. This city on the banks of the Rhine is one of the five most important business centres in Germany and one of the most international. What’s more, a comparison of the quality of life in the world’s 231 largest cities puts Düsseldorf in sixth place. Two reasons for this are the excellent public services and the fact that the city is so clean and tidy. This work is performed by AWISTA, a long-standing and highly successful public private partnership between Stadtwerke Düsseldorf and REMONDIS.
Main business: providing public services
The two main shareholders in AWISTA GmbH are the Düsseldorf utilities company, Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG (51%), and the waste management firm, REMONDIS Rhein-Wupper GmbH & Co. KG (49%). AWISTA’s core business is providing public services such as waste management and city cleaning work. These are permanent tasks with the City of Düsseldorf being the company’s largest and most important customer – all services, including clearing roads of snow and ice in winter, have been set out in long-term agreements.
770 people work for the company in Düsseldorf.
An improved performance
However, unlike the times when the business was part of the local authority set-up, AWISTA GmbH and its strategic partner, REMONDIS Rhein-Wupper GmbH & Co. KG, have looked far beyond the city’s boundaries. It also, for example, delivers public and commercial services to the Bergisches Land region via its subsidiary, AWISTA Logistik GmbH. What’s more, it is able to offer capacities for materials recycling and thermal treatment as well as for composting. The Düsseldorf-Reisholz (IDR-EG) site acts as a national hub for hazardous waste and it has guaranteed access to plants for sorting and recycling waste packaging and construction waste.
Being a public private partnership, it is extremely important that the business is run cost effectively as it is a basic right of all local inhabitants to have the best service for the best price. Efforts have constantly been made, therefore, to further improve operations. Whether it involves the workshop, waste collection services or the road cleaning division – every section has been looked at and optimised where possible. This has also included making the most of synergies by setting up a central materials management system and improving the way staff, vehicles and the workshop are deployed. It is also reflected in the company’s modern IT systems that are used to control processes and material streams as well as for centre management.
A wide range of services
Today, AWISTA’s portfolio of services goes way beyond “classic waste collection” work: modern three and four-axle vehicles are deployed to collect a whole range of different types of waste. The city cleaning department not only keeps the city’s roads clean but also provides cleaning services for special events, clears roads of snow and ice in winter and removes graffiti. What’s more, AWISTA plays a key role in special sporting and cultural events: from the Düsseldorf Marathon, to Japan Day, to the Rose Monday Parade – one of the biggest events in the city’s calendar.
Together with its partner, REMONDIS Rhein-Wupper GmbH & Co. KG, and its affiliated companies, the company treats around one million tonnes of waste every year, a good fifty percent of which comes from Düsseldorf. Looking at the different plants and facilities, approx. 450,000 tonnes are incinerated, just under 200,000 tonnes are sent to landfill and 100,000 tonnes are recycled at composting plants.
To be able to offer these services, it most certainly needs a team of qualified and motivated employees. Of the 770 people currently working in Düsseldorf, 256 are responsible for waste management and 280 for keeping the city clean. Each year, they empty around 10.4 million bins and clean 283,000 kilometres of roads and paths.
10.4 million bins are emptied every year.
Extensive quality controls
In autumn, the team travels along Düsseldorf’s approx. 3,000 roads to collect the leaves that have fallen from the 67,000 trees so that they can be recycled. In winter, AWISTA keeps the roads safe and collects old Christmas trees – at the weekend and even late into the night. It has an accredited quality management system (DIN ISO EN 9001:2015) for its road-cleaning operations which involves regular inspections and all necessary documentation as well as a complaints management system. These quality controls are most certainly one of the reasons why AWISTA has so many satisfied customers and is so popular in Düsseldorf, this major city lying between the Rhine and
the Wupper.
AWISTA managing director, Björn Becker, makes sure the company always provides clean, high quality services
Image credits: image 1: iStock: rclassenlayouts
