Somehow, it's just like back in the old days

Norberto Escobar - Egineer at TOGE in Nuremberg

Using screws to stabilize old bridges instead of demolishing them: That’s the idea behind RELAST^® —an idea that sometimes reminds engineer Norberto Escobar of his childhood.

THE PERSON

I grew up in Cuba. Back then, it was normal for us to repair our appliances time and again and to darn our socks several times over. If you saw a piece of wire lying around on the street, you would take it home with you –after all, you never knew when you might need it. We simply didn’t have that much, so you knew that you had to value and reuse what you had. Even to this day, I try to be as careful as I can with the resources I use in my day-to-day life –so I try not to eat too much meat and I like to buy from regional producers. I think that if everyone does what they can, then we can already achieve quite a bit.

THE PRODUCT

I enjoy working on a product that preserves things from the past. We can use our screws to stabilize bridges so that they last 25 years longer. So it’s all about repairing things instead of demolishing and rebuilding them. This is environmental protection at its best! Do you know how much CO2 is used in the construction of a new concrete bridge? One metric ton of CO2 for every metric ton of concrete! It’s just a nice feeling for me to put my efforts into maintaining these old bridges. And I love it when I can walk under a beautiful old bridge with my children and say: ‘Look, that’s one that we mended,’ or: ‘We’ll use our screws to fix that one at some point.

A strong pillar of the Würth Group: the manufacturing expertise of individual companies within the Group. The RELAST^® reinforcement system was developed by the subsidiary TOGE Dübel GmbH & Co. KG.