Increased number of circular flows for hazardous waste
Innovative new solutions and collaborations have recently enabled Ragn-Sells to discover recycling solutions for brake fluid, solvents and metal dust, all of which are classified as hazardous waste. The aim is to achieve circular flows for even more hazardous materials.
Every year, Ragn-Sells Recyclables handles about 60,000 tonnes of waste that is classified as hazardous. Despite the materials’ complexity, Ragn-Sells works innovatively to ensure that even the hazardous materials are recovered, which places major requirements on their handling.
– We have long had a recycling flow for waste oil and lubricating oil which we send to refineries where it is recycled. We also have oils from boats, as well as sludge and fuel oil, from which we are not able to make new products – but which we can dewater and sell onward to the cement industry, says Kristoffer Ågren, sales manager for Hazardous Waste within Recyclables.
More circular flows
We have recently produced recycling solutions for more hazardous material. Brake fluid is one of them.
– We have initiated collaborations to enable recovery of brake fluid which comes from places such as scrapyards and workshops. The process entails the refinery purifying the brake fluid, which can be re-used, thereby becoming a circular flow.
– We are on the same track when it comes to solvents. In this case, instead of collecting everything in the same tank and selling it as fuel, we have to keep them separate in different categories so that they can be recovered. It places major requirements on handling and storage and we are now seeking internal collaborations to implement this as effectively as possible.
Kristoffer Ågren, sales manager for Hazardous Waste
Finding solutions through collaboration
Collaboration is an important factor when it comes to finding new recycling solutions for hazardous waste. Another example is metal dust, where collaboration has enabled us to find a way to bind the hazardous dust and thus recycle it.
– Metal dust can develop properties in its formulation which pure pieces of metal don’t have. As dust, it can be everything from environmentally harmful and allergenic to inflammable and difficult to handle. We have now found a partner with a business model which entails working out where we can bind the metal dust in an ingenious way and then send it to, for example, metal refineries in Europe which can pick out the metals in different layers. It feels really good to have discovered this solution – instead of putting the metal dust in a landfill as we did before, Kristoffer Ågren says.