INCREASED INVESTMENT IN REUSE PRODUCES INCREASED
CO2 SAVINGS
Increasing demands to go from just buying new to reuse is a growing market that Stena Recycling wants to take a larger share of. Stena Recycling has tested a concept at Stena Rederi with good results.
For quite some time now, there has been a small ReUse facility at Stena Nordic Recycling Center in Halmstad. It has now been supplemented with the capability to delete content on computers and phones, as well as to perform function tests.
“There is already plenty of business in the sector,” says Pär Håkansson from the Elektronik business area at Stena Recycling. “A start is to collect electronics from all our customers. Our survey shows, for example, that 40 percent of the company’s A-customers do not deliver electronics. We’re naturally going to change that.”
The range of services will be expanded with a type of cabinet that in principle looks like a larger variant of the food and beverage carts used by airlines. These cabinets are placed at customer sites and the employees receive instructions on how to sort their old devices. At present, Stena can receive mobile phones, desktop computers, servers and tablets as well as laptops.
The concept has been tested at Stena Rederi, which was just starting their scheduled replacement of computers, which takes place approximately every three years. The reuse initiative was well received, and electrical products valued at SEK 80,000 were collected. The business model is based on sharing value with the customer, but also on providing customers with a report that describes, among other things, the level of CO2 savings the collection of electronics has produced.
“One kilo of recycled electronics creates CO2 savings of two kilos, while 1 kilo of recycled mobile phones creates CO2 savings of about 400 kilos,” says Pär Håkansson. “Which corresponds to what would be consumed in driving a car 1,500 km. That we can help our customers with these kinds of numbers means a lot in their sustainability reporting.”
In February, the ReUse concept will be launched on a broader front, starting in Region West, which was also involved in the collection of devices at Stena Rederi through Stena Recycling’s branch at Tingstad in Gothenburg.