The lights are on green

Mechielsen from Oldenhove have extended their services with the rental of machines for the treatment of green waste and waste wood. Therefore the acquisition of a Komptech Crambo 6200 shredder and a Cribus 3800 drum screen is big progress in their rental activities. In the past they have once tried accessing this market, but were way ahead of their time. Now all the lights are on green and the market is waking up.

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When it comes to wage work, ground moving or transport, Mechielsen from Oldenhoven, in the north of the Netherlands, has been well known for over 50 years. "Especially during the harvesting season we are working long days and weeks", jokes Cor Mechielsen. He and his brother Leo took over the company from his father Jan. "We have 65 full-time employees, but during the peak season that number can rise up to 90. We are harvesting beets, shredding corn, loading and transporting sugar and so on.“

Widening the horizon

Those peaks don't last all year and to ensure the work load over the year, Mechielsen has already extended the activities to ground and water works. Father Jan had also seen possibilities in green recycling, but at the time the market wasn't ready yet. "My brother and I preferred to take it one step at a time and wanted to focus on the new activities in sand and gravel, stone crushing and screening."

Eventually the green recycling found its way into their activities and, in 2005 they had their first job at a composting plant for which they needed to rent a screening machine. Last year they had a similar large order and the rented drum screen quickly ran for over 1000 hours. "We did some research and came to the conclusion that also here in the north, there is a market for green recycling. Now it's up to us to wake up the market."

Modern and durable

With the recent acquisition a Crambo 6200 direct on tracks and a Cribus 3800, they have definitely taken the turn towards green recycling. Both machines are now ready for wage work and machine rental. The choice of a supplier turned out very easy, the many years of good relationship with the Dutch Komptech dealer PON Equipment were a major advantage. "Not only PON has the network to help us find new customers, Komptech machines are modern, durable and reliable. They actually run so smoothly it gives me goose bumps. We usually work with our machines ourselves, but now that we've entered the rental market, it's sometimes hard to leave a 500.000 Euro machine behind at the customer. It's harder than lending out my Ferrari, if I had one…“