Spreading seaweed water with the Unimog

Municipal sprinkler as irrigation system in seaside.
Achieve ecological masterpiece with a Unimog

The Unimog in its function as a brine/municipal sprayer is a familiar sight – in winter it sprays FS100, in summer it is used for landscape maintenance or in road construction as an irrigation device. But recently, resourceful employees in Boltenhagen have come up with something new: using the implement to apply seaweed water to green areas – ecology in the best sense.

The municipal sprayer from HERBERT DAMMANN GmbH in Buxtehude-Hedendorf, Lower Saxony, is an all-year-round multi-talent: As a winter service machine, the brine sprayer is used to spread FS100 during the icy season, and as a watering and irrigation system or for alluvial work during the frosty season. In the Baltic Sea – at Boltenhagen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, there has been a new field of application for the U500 with the sprayer superstructure since June 2021: spraying green areas with seagrass water.

For a long time, the seaside place has had problems with excessive amounts of seaweed being washed ashore. The Baltic location need for clearing technology – it is visited by numerous bathing tourists every year – increased sharply. The solution: a seaweed installation.

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Picked-up flotsam is transported to a concrete storage and collection site. The seaweed stored there is dried and then processed further, for example into insulation material, and the seaweed water is collected in large underground cisterns. The coup: The 6,000-litre tank of the DAMMANN municipal sprayer is filled with the liquid obtained and this is spread on green areas in the vicinity – as a natural fertiliser. The sprayer, with its spraying width of three to 18 metres, thus achieves an ecological masterpiece and once again proves its versatility: liquid extracted from waste can be returned to the natural cycle through its use.

The municipality of Boltenhagen and the construction yard employees are convinced by the flexibility and functionality of the DAMMANN KS sprayer, reports Frank Schock, sales consultant for municipal and airport technology at DAMMANN. “According to site yard manager Christian Würz, the device is very well received by his employees,” says Frank Schock. Already one third of the procurement costs had been amortized in the summer season. The tasks that arose were carried out by one employee when time suited and no longer had to be contracted out to an outside company.

The DAMMANN KS is now ready for environmentally friendly winter maintenance after the summer season. Since the Boltenhagen road maintenance department does not have its own brine plant, the device is equipped in such a way that it can be used to produce brine for winter road maintenance. This means that the “return on investment” is also given here.