It only takes a couple of hours to turn a car from a piece of junk into ready-sorted raw materials. As much as half of the metals in industrial use are recycled.

When a scrap car arrives at its final destination at Kuusakoski's recycling plant, any hazardous substances, mainly fluids, are first removed. Batteries and tyres are taken out and sent for recycling elsewhere.

It only takes 10-15 seconds to crush the car. A magnet separates out the steel which is, as such, ready for processing by the metal, foundry and chemical industries. Other metals - copper, brass, bronze, tin, lead, magnesium and titan - are separated in Kuusakoski's Heinola multi-metal plant and used as raw materials for industry.

Approximately 90 per cent of the separated metal raw materials go outside Finland. In about six months after the scrapping of a car, its materials have ended up back on the road in a new vehicle or as electronic devices in people's homes.

Metal in an endless cycle

Metals can be melted, cleaned, alloyed and used again and again. Kuusakoski's operations cover the whole recycle chain of metal scrap from product reception and pre-treatment to industrial separation of materials and their processing into raw materials.

The recycling plants convert scrap cars, gambling machines or petrol pumps into a form in which they can be utilised for, say, GSM support station structures or mobile phone covers. The foundries process the aluminium, magnesium and zinc into ready-to-install components for the electronics and vehicle industries.

Industry's secondary mine

The recycling industry already provides half of the metals used in new products. This generates 50-95 per cent energy savings compared with the mining and concentration of metal ores. Recycling reduces traditional mining and its associated environmental problems: waste, the exhaustion of natural resources and ravaged landscapes. The energy savings achieved by using recycled materials reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to Kuusakoski, the efficient recycling of the company and its customers reduces the level of global carbon dioxide emissions by 2 million tons a year.

Kuusakoski turns unwanted waste into a thriving business. Recycling operations form 80 per cent of the company's net sales. The other 20 per cent is derived from the converting of metals in the company's own foundries. In 2001, net sales totalled 443 million euros and there were 1,700 employees.

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