IQR Systems AB

In 1979, Svenska Slipers AB was founded in Trollhättan by Thomas Karlström. His idea was to take care of all worn railway sleepers along the railway and sell these to garden traders and golf courses around Sweden. It turned out to be a good idea.

It turned out, however, that many of these sleepers could not be reused in this way. They were rotten or otherwise destroyed by having been on the tracks for over 30 years. We then began to see if it was possible to burn the bad sleepers. A debate then started about creosote (the impregnating agent that sleepers are usually impregnated with) and whether it was dangerous to burn or not.

This started a phase in the company's history where extensive studies were done on creosote and what happens when this hydrocarbon is burned. It turned out to be completely harmless to burn creosote at the right temperatures in industrial plants. We then decided to take our responsibility and not let more sleepers be sold on the market. Our position was that used sleepers should not be used for anything other than what they were intended for, namely tracks, and that they should therefore be incinerated at the 'end of life'.

We operated this line for many years and Sweden's well-developed district heating network gave us advantages for many years. It was simply more environmentally friendly to transport them here for good combustion and efficient energy use than to burn them in other countries and use the energy poorly or put them in gardens where they do not really belong. The amount of sleepers that now reached Trollhättan put pressure on our equipment for crushing. We had to develop a system that allowed high capacity and low wear.

We developed the hammer mill concept and today this machine is our main product. It also became more and more attractive to look at other types of wood waste. The business was developed to also include ownership of heating plants. To cope with the new incineration directive in 2005, a rebuild was required. This is where we fully developed our two-stage combustion.

This product is today relatively new but has proven to be a concept that is here to stay. Now we focus on selling equipment to companies in the same situation as us through the experience we have built up over the years. We know what is required for sustainable waste production. We are proud that so many of our employees have been involved for so long. That's why we know what we're talking about.