A new production site has opened in the Elizovo branch of Grodno Glass Factory OJSC

Hardening competitiveness

For residents of the village of Elizovo in the Osipovichsky district, renovations at the local glass factory, without exaggeration, concern every family. In fact, the village itself appeared thanks to the plant, which turned 110 years old last year. The new section for the preparation and sorting of cullet allowed to create 26 jobs and became the next stage in the development of the enterprise. The investment project was implemented thanks to the program initiated by the President "One district - one project", which is aimed at solving key problems in each region: from creating jobs to producing competitive products.

Economy plus ecology

The building of the former compressor plant was reconstructed to create space for the new production site, access railways were laid, and equipment was installed. Svetlana Bolotko found a job here. She comes from Bobruisk to the village of Elizovo (and this is 35 kilometers): transportation of workers is organized, the salary is decent. Svetlana is a foreman, her workplace is at a computer monitor, where the entire process of preparing and sorting cullet is visible, when raw materials suitable for further production are obtained. She talks about the intricacies of the matter:

— With the help of magnetic separators, metal is separated, optoelectronic sensors allow sorting cullet by color. The fact is that glass of different colors differs in chemical composition: for our production we need white, for the Grodno Glass Factory — green. Then the cullet goes to the crusher, is calcined and cleaned in a drying drum, after which it is divided by color and goes to silos for further shipment.

Previously, raw materials for production were purchased from suppliers, and this affected the cost price and, ultimately, the development of the enterprise. The new site will allow sorting 50 thousand tons of mixed cullet per year and also provide raw materials to the parent enterprise — the Grodno Glass Factory. Cullet in the glass mass is about 30 percent, the rest is a batch, or a mixture of raw materials. Even the waste that remains after cleaning the broken glass is considered a secondary resource here. A young specialist, environmental engineer Maxim Kuznetsov is responsible for the waste-free operation of the new site. He admits that the topic of waste management is very interesting to him, he sees great potential in further improving the entire chain of separate waste collection:

— Together with an ecologist, we took inventory of the waste, manually separated, weighed, calculated how much polypropylene, polyethylene, cardboard, aluminum and so on are contained in each ton of broken glass. My task is to bring together ecology and economics, separate the waste into fractions and find a buyer. By the way, a ton of broken glass replaces more than a ton of new raw materials.

The plant is personal

The new section will affect the economy of the entire plant, because the implementation of the investment project solved the problem of dependence on the price dictated by external suppliers of sorted glass waste.

Anyone who has never been to a workshop where glass containers are made from glass mass cannot imagine how fascinating this sight is. The temperature in the glass furnace is 1550 degrees. Liquid glass mass enters a dispenser, which forms a glass drop. First, the blank is cast, and only then the bottle or jar takes its final form: the glass literally burns and resembles red-hot metal.

In the control room of the glass-melting furnace, glassmaker Sergey Sivakov watches the process using a video camera in the furnace, which displays the image on the monitor:

— The process charts are developed for any product: a mixture of raw materials strictly according to the recipe. All process parameters are visible on the monitors. This is high-tech production, and the control of glass-forming machines is an art that can only be taught at the plant. My wife works here, and my parents used to work here.

Almost everyone has a dynasty: we live in Elizovo, and for all of us, the plant is personal. Any stage of modernization is our working conditions and wages. The President personally launched the new glass-melting furnace in 2006, which served as the start for the new production line. And the new site is another step to ensure that our products remain competitive.

The work of glass production equipment adjuster Yuri Golofast can be compared to an ambulance. He can be called both at night and on weekends, since the work here is round the clock. He admits that he can find any unit on the production line with his eyes closed. His father once headed the plant, his mother worked here, and now his wife Natalya works as the head of the laboratory. Yuri Ivanovich came here after school and over 30 years has seen different stages in the history of his native enterprise - from bankruptcy to modernization.

- When I started my career as an operator, there was a small oven in the workshop, they made hand-made glass containers ... The plant is developing. In 2020, we mastered the NNPB technology, unique among domestic manufacturers - we produce a lightweight bottle, such containers are in demand both domestically and abroad. Now the main thing is to be one step ahead of competitors and increase the marginality of our own production.

Director of Grodno Glass Factory OJSC, Elizovo branch Oleg Gerbach:

— The investment volume for the investment project amounted to 15.8 million rubles. Financing was carried out through a loan from the Development Bank and own funds. The benefits of the project are enormous and multi-vector. Glass cullet is used as an additive to save expensive resources, speeds up the batch cooking process, reduces energy consumption in production and helps to improve the environmental friendliness of glass production by reducing emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere.

FIGURES

In 2021-2025, it is planned to implement 31 projects in the Mogilev region with a total investment of 1 billion 280 million rubles and create at least 1,592 new jobs. Opening modern production facilities, additional jobs and, as a result, preventing the outflow of people from regional centers, producing competitive products, import substitution and increasing exports are the most important areas that are today in the center of attention of each region of the republic.

Source: www.sb.by