Also celebrating: Kuusakoski turns 110

In honour of Recycling International’s 25th anniversary, we are spotlighting leading industry players over the coming months. This time, it’s Kuusakoski Recycling, which is looking back on a legacy of almost 110 years.

They’re not there yet but preparations for Kuusakoski Recycling’s 110th anniversary in 2024 are already underway. ‘To mark this milestone we’ll make a nice video in nine languages, organise a huge party and, of course, eat a delicious cake,’ says the company’s e-scrap director Tapio Kuusakoski.

There are reasons a-plenty for celebration. In September 2022 the Scandinavian recycling major launched an ambitious, multi-million-Euro investment programme to strengthen its position in the recycling industry as a pioneer of the green transition.

Kuusakoski puts its money where its mouth is. Over the past months, the company has been making ‘scrap’ headlines with a series of major innovation projects. Most recent: EUR 25 million being pumped into a new steel recycling plant near Kemi on the Bothnia Gulf in northern Finland.

The company says the facility will be a carbon-neutral operation. The investment is a response to growing demand for recycled metals in both Finland and Sweden and will increase Kuusakoski’s annual recycling capacity by 150 000 tonnes or 25%.

Meanwhile, Kuusakoski is also spending more than EUR 4 million on the construction of a new composite shredding and treatment plant in southern Finland. And an integrated processing plant for feedstock containing aluminium and copper is being built in Heinola, north of Helsinki.

Additionally, the company will increase the capacity for pre-treatment of metals and its separation capability, for example with the help of a next-generation facility specialising in small fractions. The goal is to significantly increase the amount of clean-end products. Kuusakoski has set a target of carbon-neutral operations by 2035.

Kuusakoski Group’s turnover in 2021 was EUR 717 million.