At Stena’s facility in Mekjarvik, outside Stavanger, thousands of tonnes of industrial waste are transformed every year into valuable secondary resources. Across Norway alone, Stena operates 15 facilities handling around 600,000 tonnes of waste annually, of which up to 450,000 tons iron and steel.
“Thanks to the thoroughness of Stena Recycling, general waste such as plastic and cardboard as well as metal scrap from our production are recycled and reintroduced into new products, contributing to circularity and reduced environmental impact”, says Sverdrup’s HSEQ &
Sustainability Manager Gunn Holm-Jensen.
From scrap to steel – again
The circular flow begins at Sverdrup’s own operations. When steel bars are cut, residual material – known as swarf – offcuts and surplus metal pieces remain.
This scrap is segregated into alloys at Sverdrup and collected by Stena Recycling. Here, the scrap is processed into recycled metal being sent back to mills such as Outokumpu, a key supplier of Sverdrup’s high performance alloys.
A circular value chain in practice
Consider a typical application: Sverdrup supplies stainless steel bars (e.g. EN 1.4404 / 316L) to a manufacturer of high-spec pump systems for the energy sector. After years serving under corrosive conditions, the pumps are eventually decommissioned – and sent back to a Stena facility for fracturing of its stainless steel components. Once returned into the recycling stream, the material is delivered back to a steel mill, melted and rolled into new alloys.
Industrial scale, long-term perspective
Stena Recycling operates 178 facilities across Europe and is a leading supplier of recycled metal to major steel producers. In addition to recycling raw material, Stena identifies, repairs, and returns electronic and other products for reuse – thereby saving energy for fracturing and recycling the components. The company constantly optimizes their own resources consumption.
«We use emission-free electricity, and we electrify our internal logistics such as forklifts and trucks», says Hilde Østerhus, Sustainability Business Partner at Stena Recycling.
