Vargon Alloys and other adventures in Vanersborg

Monday, March 09, 2009 – Our first full day in Vänersborg was very, very busy as well as interesting. In the morning, our first stop was at Vargön Alloys – they produce Ferrochrome for use in making stainless steel and are very advanced in their environmental protection practices. They take three separate components – iron ore, coal and quartz to make their final end product. But, they are also very resourceful with the by-products from their processing….the slag is being used for road construction, house foundations and in making concrete while the heat generated from their furnaces is being used as steam for energy or to heat water for use in the district heating system utilized by the municipality of Vänersborg. After learning about the plant and its operations, we were able to witness one of the furnaces being tapped. At their current production level, this happens once every four hours(fyra for those of you following along in Swedish) and was VERY fascinating to watch!!! The bucket that they empty the material into looks like a VERY large wooden beach pail which they move away from the furnace to dump the ferrochrome in one area before dumping the slag in another.

After lunch in their plant restaurant, we were off to our next stops - - for me, it was a shoe store called Nya Skor which means “new shoes” in Swedish. Anna, the woman who owns the store, is the president of one of Vänersborg’s four Rotary clubs and the store has been in her family since 1984. Her store is very similar to what we call “Mom and Pop” shoe stores in America. She carries a variety of brands including Ecco, Birkenstock and some Hush Puppies. While the styles are very different from American fashion; the problems they are facing are very similar to ours.

This evening, we had our second presentation. While it was well attended and, overall, went very well… my portion had a “good recovery” …. I got through the slides about my work and what I do for a living with flying colors but somewhat “lost it” when the pictures of my family were flashed on the next slide…. It took me a couple of seconds to regain my composure but I did and it does show that I really do miss you all back home already!

When Lennart and I returned home, Lena was at what they call gymnastics (more like our exercise class) so we sat and talked and drank carbonated cider while I cleaned up all of my pictures and labeled them. I’m trying to keep on top of this since we will need to prepare a presentation for the Rotary District meeting in River Falls two weeks after we return while we are trying to catch up with our families and at work. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot the most important part of the day!! After I was done in Anna’s store, I stopped by a SCRAPBOOK STORE (yes! They even have them in SWEDEN) and looked but did not find anything that I couldn’t live without.

It’s about 10:15 PM here while its only 4:15 PM there since you all have “sprung ahead” already and Sweden does not do that until the end of the month. So, I need to sign off for now and write a bit in my journal and get some rest - - another busy day tomorrow and we cap off our stay here at the Elk Museum for dinner & a tour tomorrow evening. No, not American elk – they are Swedish elk or what we’d call moose. Vi ses! (See you!)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 – Today started at 9 AM at Ragn Sells. They are a recycling center that turns some of the trash from the community into biogas and biofertilizer. The concepts were interesting and seemed very progressive. They have been in operation for about 9 years. The most interesting tidbit that I left with was the fact that one of their small green garbage bags (for the more organic items from their houses) can be turned into enough biogas to run a car for 2.5 km.

Our next stop was at the Town Hall to meet a couple women who work with the Environmental Planning for the area. They talked about how they approach development in their municipality from three different angles when thinking about how to best maintain the greenlands while expanding the housing to meet the target of growing their community by 3,000 people by 2015.

Now, we have a few hours to rest before our evening at the Elk Museum… take care! Hopefully, I will have another opportunity to post in the next day or two as we move to another community tomorrow.