Time & resource savings through the eTFSportal

ETU Altbernsdorf digitizes its transboundary waste shipment

Ulm, 17. September 2019

Inspired by the Saxony State Directorate (Landesdirektion Sachsen) in Germany, the company Eigensche Trocken- und Umwelttechnik GmbH Altbernsdorf has converted its cross-border waste shipment to Poland to electronic pre-notification. The move has reduced processing time at transport registration by 75 percent and saved up to two additional days by immediately releasing the security deposit via the electronic confirmation of recycling in the recycling plant.


The Eigensche Trocken- und Umwelttechnik GmbH Altbernsdorf (ETU) provides the remediation of mineral waste by treatment processes such as microbiological treatment. This includes exporting mineral waste to Poland among other countries. This process places extensive demands on the application regarding cross-border waste shipment and the requirement to provide supporting documentation. A large number of forms must be completed, and documents must be provided before the actual transport to the recycling plant. Since the manual, paper-intensive process of cross-border waste shipment takes a long time, the Saxony state directorate encouraged ETU to switch to an electronic solution. In order to find the appropriate solution for saving time and resources and increasing legal certainty with regards to the individual processes, ETU started a selection process. After intensive testing, it chose Axians eWaste’s eTFS portal, which was immediately accessible to all parties as a cloud-based browser solution without any necessary software installation.


Frank Capek, authorised representative of ETU, explains: “An important selection criteria for the electronic notification system was that the entire process – from the actual application for a notification up to the transport documents – is supported. Also, the solution needed to consider and integrate all parties involved in waste transport that do not yet rely on electronic notification, such as fax or e-mail, so that all our notification processes could be managed without exception via one uniform system.”


Since moving to the eTFS portal, ETU is experiencing a number of advantages. These include considerable time savings through faster notification and release of the security deposit for the recycling processes; ongoing cost savings through simplified work processes; maximum transparency through electronic storage; and having a comprehensive overview of the processes in real time.


Frank Capek concludes: “Compared to the previous manual, paper-based processes which were highly time-consuming it takes a quarter of the time to register for waste shipment due to the electronic notification. Additionally, the weight of the trucks on the scales in the recycling plant is entered directly via the software. The security for each individual shipment is also automatically released directly upon electronic confirmation of recovery. This results in a time saving of up to two days, as we used to have to wait in advance for release of securities until two-thirds of daily trips were completed before the trucks could come back. As such, our storage and handling capacity now is also larger.”


The conversion to an electronic cross-border waste shipment not only enables the digital exchange of all necessary transport documentation, but can also be issued individually based on templates and master data in the desired national language. The transfer of the data to the Saxon authority in Germany is also carried out electronically. It is also possible to create, print, sign, send, and update desired processes in a stack if desired.

Further information of the electronic notification can be found on the Axians eWaste software solution page for international waste transportation and disposal.