07/06-10   -   Press releases

Stena receives environmental award of €30,000 for recycling more from electronic waste

Electronic waste contains a range of different metals and other materials that it is important to recycle. Stena Metall has now been awarded an environmental prize of €30,000 by Elretur for minimizing waste after treatment of electronic waste.

With this prize we can concentrate even more on offering the market’s best solutions", says Snorre Kolseth, Research and Development manager for electronic recycling within the Stena Metall Group.

Elretur AS in Norway is a national company for the collection, recycling and environmentally friendly management of electronic waste in Norway. Every year Elretur awards an environmental prize which supports projects that develop the recycling of worn-out electrical and electronic products, WEEE waste.
Stena was awarded the environmental prize this year for an investment in minimizing waste after the treatment of electronic waste.

Stena’s facility at Ausenfjellet in Frogner, Norway, pretreats large amounts of WEEE waste. The waste then receives final treatment at Stena’s facility in Halmstad in Sweden.
“Recycling as much as possible is an important objective for us, our customers and the environment. With the environmental prize we want to use new innovative methods to squeeze out the last metals, because we are dealing with finite resources", says Snorre Kolseth.
Using pyrolysis technology, organic materials can be removed releasing metal particles for further treatment. Organic material in the waste is converted to carbon, gas and oil that can be used as energy fuel. With chemical extraction the objective is to increase recycling of copper and other metals. The same technology is used for indium, an in-demand material that is used in LCD screens for example.
The research will be carried out within the Stena project, Zero Waste to landfill which was started in 2008.

The Stena Metall Group is Europe´s leading recycler of electronics, with operations in 18 facilities in ten countries. The group’s recycling of TV sets, computers, refrigerators, freezers and other electronic products has prevented emissions of 1.3 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. That is the amount by which emissions would have increased if the material had not been recycled, but had been replaced with new raw materials.
"We have had a long-term collaboration with Elretur since the WEEE directive was introduced. It is very positive that our aggressive research has been recognized and this prize will help us to increase the pace. That benefits our customers, the environment and society. Each kilo of copper that we can recycle prevents emissions of 20 kilos of carbon dioxide.

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http://v2.brandstudio.net//external/index.cfm?publicId=162df3d2-5683-4e13-ab72-acfb14aa4650

For more information: Snorre Kolseth, R&D Manager, Business Area WEEE tel. +47 901 66 132

Facts Business Area WEE, the Stena Metall Group
The Stena Metall Group is Europe´s leading recycler of electronics and the business was founded in the early 90s. The Business Area WEEE has operations in ten countries: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Poland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Italy. Using the same tried-and-tested and effective processes, Europe´s electronic waste is recycled in our facilities.