Sustainable Future with Viken

Viken County Municipality is Norway's largest county with over 1.2 million inhabitants and manages a number of tasks across its municipalities. Their county hall in the center of Oslo is a complex and multifunctional building with many departments. This diversity makes cleaning a challenging task.

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Sustainability in focus

Rujira Coles, section manager in Viken County Municipality, the Cleaning Section, has a clear and ambitious goal of anchoring sustainability as a central part of its operations. She and the rest of the team in the Cleaning Section are dedicated to improving the working conditions for their cleaners, while at the same time raising the quality of professional cleaning. Rujira's vision goes hand in hand with creating an inviting workplace for all employees who use the premises and ensuring good working conditions for the cleaners, so that they can perform at their very best.

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THE CHALLENGE

Overflowing waste containers

In addition to functioning as office premises, the county hall Galleri Oslo is also used for various events and meetings, which leads to frequent use of the washrooms. This versatile use makes it challenging to maintain washroom hygiene and an overview of use. A notable challenge Rujira observed was that the washrooms were mostly clean, but the waste bins were often overflowing with paper. This led to the cleaners having to make more frequent trips to the washrooms, as part of their cleaning routines. She quickly identified paper consumption as a major bottleneck for more efficient and optimized cleaning.

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"The washrooms were often clean, but the cleaners had to constantly enter the washrooms to change waste bags."
– Rujira Coles

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Avoid unnecessary trips to the washrooms

Viken county council therefore had a strong desire to find a solution that could reduce the volume of paper waste and thereby abolish the need for repeated trips to the washrooms exclusively to change waste bags. For Rujira and her cleaning team, it became clear that if they found a solution to this repetitive task, this would facilitate a more efficient workflow and result in a cleaner workplace.

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Want to reduce the use of plastic waste

The cleaning section in Viken has always had a clear focus on its social responsibility and works consistently to create a seamless and valuable operation, both for the employees and the environment. Rujira herself took the initiative to introduce the idea of recycling bags to her colleagues - a simple and sustainable solution to reduce plastic waste. Although this was a step in the right direction, she realized that it would be far more efficient for the cleaners if they could minimize the time spent on bag changes and instead spend the time on other important cleaning tasks.

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THE SOLUTION

The collaboration between the Cleaning Section in Viken and Compax Solutions goes back to 2021, when they contacted Compax Solutions and tested a system consisting of 6 units. The implementation of this system proved to be a great success as it helped to significantly improve the cleaning process. Inspired by these positive results at the county hall Galleri Oslo, they chose to purchase 16 more units at the county hall in Drammen.

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50 more units

The results and advantages of the Compax System™ were so convincing that, in the autumn of 2023, the Cleaning Section decided to take a big step further by expanding to 50 additional compactors at Galleri Oslo County Hall. The aim of this expansion is to transform the cleaning operation from being characterized by routine to becoming a more needs-based process.

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Compax stands out with its ground-breaking vacuum technology, which, using sensor technology, enables the automatic compression of paper towel waste in the waste bins when they approach full capacity. Digitization with sensors was seen as an opportunity for the Cleaning Section in Viken, which contributes to making today's waste management more efficient.

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This unique system is an obvious solution to meet Viken's challenges. While traditional waste containers easily overflow with paper when full, Compax ensures that the paper is compressed, freeing up more space and allowing longer time intervals before emptying. Compax's waste containers increase capacity by up to 15 times, compared to traditional waste containers. This technology has transformed the process around waste management from being routine based to becoming more demand driven, which has led to a positive change in the cleaning process at Viken.

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RESULT

A significant reduction of plastic bags

The cleaning section's commitment to sustainability and innovation is further emphasized through the significant reduction in plastic bag consumption as a direct consequence of the integration of the Compax System™. Before the integration, plastic bags were changed daily, but now the waste containers are only emptied once a month. This represents a concrete step towards realizing Viken's sustainability goals and promoting a more sustainable and innovative approach to cleaning and waste management.

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The successful implementation of the Compax System™ shows Viken's strong commitment to a sustainable future and the willingness to embrace innovative technology to achieve its goals.