Historical view

Our engineering company is a small, but innovative enterprise, that has achieved a good reputation in the environmental industry since it‘s foundation in 1988 . We exclusively work for the interests of our clients and we already often proved, that innovative solutions help to reduce costs.

Till 2003 our enterprise was carried on as a one-man business, afterwards the reorganistaion to today‘s form of a civil engineering company took place.

Acting partner  (he holds 100 % of company‘s share) is Dipl. Ing. Josef Ringhofer.

After finishing his study (Agricultural engineering and water management on the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences) in 1975, he was co-worker of an engineer‘s office for scarcely 3 years, which concentrated on river engineering, flood prevention and road planning.

From dump to controlled landfill ….
 

In 1977 he switched to the waste management industry, which was nearly not existent at that time. In Austria that was the time of numbers of small and big waste dumps, which were carried on without special protections from contamination of groundwater and air.  His functions as head of the department at the environmental protection agency in Lower Austria were to build up and control central landfills in Lower Austria, which came up to be the state-of-the-art at that time. In the next years all in all 12 central sorted landfills and 2 composting plants were built up (today they would be designated as mechanical-biological treatment plants), where the waste of approx. 80 % of the inhabitants of Lower Austria were disposed.

After 10 years  DI Ringhofer was searching for a new challenge and went into business for himself, by launching a civil engineering office.

From the waste disposal to waste management…

In the meantime environmental protection (and therefore the waste as well) had become a public topic, which was reflected in numbers of new laws and regulations.

The content of the re-organisation of waste management goes by the following premises:

- Waste prevention

- Waste utilization

- Waste treatment

- Controlled landfilling of not preventable and not utilizable waste

For the organisational conversion of these guidelines concepts were necessary.

Our office provided lots of studies and concepts, in fact for state governments, associations of waste, munincipalities and enterprises. In these years new associations of waste management  constitute; we could co-operate with many of them as an „obstetrician“.

By the measure of  seperated  collection of problem waste and utilizable material (Paper, glass, metals, plastic, biogenic material, etc.) not only the dangerousness of the waste, but also the quantity of the remainders which can be deposited can be reduced.

          Graphic: Waste emergence in Lower Asutria (1993 - 2006)

Ban of residue for untreated waste as of 2004…

For legal reasons as of 1.1.2004 only treated waste is allowed to be deposited.

In order to be able to fulfill these requirements, the creation of new treatment capacities was necessary. Also within this range our engineering office was significantly involved.

A particular virtue is the europa-wide exemplary transportation logistics of lower-austria waste to the central thermal utilization plant in Zwentendorf/Dürnrohr. 90 % of the waste have to be delivered by train.

This requires the creation of transfer stations, whose number and geographical position was defined after ecological and economical criteria. This transportation logistic  was elaborated by our office and accompanied in the conversion phase.

Sins of the past have to be rehabilitated…

Also in the rehabilation of contaminated sites we made a name for ourselves:

The rehabilation of the Berger-landfill (Lower Austria) results from the evacuation and costs approx. 100 million Euro.

The Rehabilation of the tannery-mud-landfill Grubhof (Upper Austria) results from immobilization according to the method of diagenetical inertisation („eco-landfill“) and following landfilling. Expenditure approx. 8 million Euro.