Our History

Returo was founded in 2007 by the municipal parent companies, Avea, Leverkusen and MVA Bonn.
The goal was to provide the commercial waste disposal market with the free capacities of the Bonn and Leverkusen incineration plants that were not required for the region's municipal waste.

Under the management of Hans Peter Fabrizius, today with his successor Martin Krekeler, and Manfred Becker, Returo began to build up a customer base in Germany and abroad and to manage the waste volumes to the plants.

The first major project was the coordination of household waste from Naples.

In a major eight-month project from August 2008 to the end of February 2009, Returo coordinated 68,084 tons of household waste from Naples to eight waste incineration plants in NRW.

The project in NRW began with the Italian government's request for help from the Federal Republic of Germany and was part of a nationally coordinated emergency aid programme for Italy.

Under the leadership of Returo, eight municipal plant operators took over contingents from Naples. The contractual partner on the Italian side was the Italian government, represented by the "Special Commissioner for the Waste Emergency in the Campania Region" appointed by the Prime Minister. The plants in Cologne, Kamp-Lintfort, Weisweiler, Herten, Düsseldorf, Wuppertal, Leverkusen and Bonn were involved in the recycling process.

This was the first time that Returo was able to demonstrate its expertise in waste management beyond Germany's borders. After this extremely successful start, numerous waste disposal projects with foreign customers followed in the years to come.