Recycling industry reduces waste
By Harri Mäkelä, freelance journalist
A consumer society needs an efficient recycling industry. In Finland, vehicle tyres, cars, electric and electronic appliances, paper and packaging are recycled efficiently. The recycling of boats has also been started in the land of thousands of lakes.
Over 100 million tonnes of waste are generated in Finland each year, equivalent to about 20 tonnes per person, but most of this waste comes in the form of rock and earth resulting from mining operations and construction.
The amount of waste generated by construction and industry has been reduced in recent years. Now, one of the greatest challenges in preventing the creation of waste is increasing the lifespan of products at a time when globalisation is cutting the prices of industrially manufactured products, a process that in fact shortens their service life.
Legislation speeds up recycling
With environmental problems constantly on the increase, more attention is being paid to the recycling and reuse of various materials. The aim is to reduce the amount of material that could be reused by industry but now ends up in dumping sites. In line with EU legislation, Finland is implementing the principle of manufacturer's responsibility, according to which manufacturers and importers are responsible for arranging the recycling of their products when the owners want to get rid of them. Currently, manufacturer responsibility legislation covers, among other products, cars, tyres, electric and electronic appliances, and packaging and paper.
© Muotohiomo
About 100,000 cars, 3,000,000 car tyres and hundreds of thousands of electric and electronic appliances are discarded annually in Finland alone. Obviously, such amounts of waste must be treated and refined into reusable raw materials instead of simply being buried in landfill sites. Modern waste management requires industrial and innovative recycling know-how to complement it.
Leading recycler in northern Europe
Established almost a century ago, Kuusakoski Recycling, a Finnish company, is the leading industrial recycling services company in northern Europe and one of the world's largest refiners and suppliers of recycled metals. The company has over 100 business locations worldwide, including Russia, the three Baltic states, Poland, Sweden and China.
Kuusakoski operates in 20 business locations in Finland, the largest of which is in Heinola, in the southeast. It is also the largest recycling plant in the Nordic countries. Kuusakoski Recycling's turnover exceeds EUR 800 million and the company employs more than 2,000 workers trained in recycling.
Millions of tonnes treated
Kuusakoski annually treats about 2.5 million tonnes of various recycleable materials, most of which is scrap metal. Its recycling services are mostly intended for the metal industry and manufacturer organisations that are obligated to attend to the recycling and reuse of scrapped cars, electric and electronic appliances and car tyres. Individual consumers can also deliver materials to Kuusakoski's facilities for recycling.
Photo: Sami Repo
About 100,000 cars are scrapped in Finland every year. In accordance with an EU directive, the final owner of a car is entitled to deliver it, free of charge, to one of Kuusakoski's recycling centres, where it will be removed from the vehicle register. Authorised recycling centres such as these will then treat the car and remove any hazardous waste, such as the battery, fuel and other fluids. After this, the car is crushed using an industrial process that separates stainless steel, iron, aluminium and copper – all raw materials that are sold for reuse in the steel industry around the world.
Car tyres are collected and put through a tyre shredder specifically designed for this purpose. The resulting tyre granules are reused in road repair work, noise barriers and the structures of closed dumping areas and horse riding arenas. The utilisation of granulated rubber obtained from recycled tyres is extremely important from an environmental point of view because used tyres previously ended up in landfill sites or were dumped in the countryside. The recycling of electric and electronic appliances in Finland began in 2005. It covers almost all household appliances that need electricity to operate, such as refrigerators, televisions, computers, telephones and fluorescent tubes, as well as workplace appliances, such as analysis equipment used in healthcare, and office machines. The appliances are deposited at Kuusakoski's recycling plant, where, after preliminary treatment, which may include the removal of hazardous waste and other harmful substances, they are crushed using an industrial process. Different types of metal, including steel, copper, aluminium, and plastic, are obtained from the appliances and can be reused in the manufacturing of new appliances.
Boats recycled too
Finland has tens of thousands of lakes and is also adjacent to a vast sea area. Currently, there are almost a million recreational boats in Finland, a significant number of which are disposed of every year. A manufacturer responsibility scheme similar to that applied to cars does not exist for boats, but it may become an issue in the near future. For this reason, Finnboat, the umbrella organisation for Finland’s boat manufacturers and traders, and Kuusakoski, started recycling boats some years ago. The cooperation has attracted a great deal of attention and a considerable number of old boats and boats in poor condition have been collected from inland waters and coastal areas. The recycling of old and discarded boats has attracted international attention, with Finland apparently the only country in the world that does this.
Attitude and inventiveness crucial
Consumer habits change slowly. But it is possible to lessen the creation of waste with effective legislation, for example by levying charges on the use of dumping areas, which would reduce the output of the packaging industry and lengthen the lifespan of products. The essential point, however, is that we need to consume less and thus produce less waste than before. Since such a model is unrealistic at present, waste has to be recycled efficiently and in an environmentally friendly way. That is why an active and innovative recycling industry is the answer to this challenge, a challenge that is already being tackled in Finland.
© Finnish Tyre Recycling Ltd