Visit at Paroc on the 28th of November

Me, Aleksi and Edward went to Parainen to visit Paroc facilities and hear about their business and products. Our Spanish team members were not able to come, so we went just the three of us. We were warmly welcomed and the days started off with a presentation of the company. Our innovation task was not yet revealed to us but we received a lot of information on how Paroc operates and what kind of products they produce. This will certainly help us to think about solutions for their current challenges.

After the presentation and the breakfast, we went for a guided tour inside the factory where stone wool is manufactured.

Paroc is able to reuse part of the waste generated in the process. The fluffy material which is produced in the beginning of the process that we saw surrounding the machines on the floor are partly reused and the rest goes to landfill. Apparently, this is not a big amount of waste because it weighs so little. On the other hand, the extra side edges cut off from compressed stone wool that are generated in the cutting process are entirely recycled. They are shredded and reintroduced to the process. The same thing is done to material that is somehow damaged in the process and cannot be sold as end product. This minimizes the waste treatment and material costs.

However, biggest challenges that Paroc is facing at the moment are related to the treatment of waste. Landfilling costs are becoming higher in all countries where Paroc is operating because of tightening environmental legislation. Even more expensive than landfilling fees are the costs generated from toxic waste that has to be sent to special waste treatments plants. One of Paroc's goals is to create zero-waste plants and they already have one in Sweden. The innovation assignment was not revealed to us yet but I assume it has to do with reusing waste generated in the production, maybe about inventing how to use the dust created in the process because for now, Paroc doesn't have a use for it. The task could also be about optimizing a reverse logistics system for collecting the construction waste from customers because Paroc considers it to be a great competitive advantage, when it can organize a collection of such waste for its customers. In any case, when the innovation camp starts tomorrow, we will probably find out what our task is!









Elina