“A 1.5 degree world can only be a circular world. Recycling, greater resource efficiency and circular business models offer huge scope to reduce emissions. A systemic approach to applying these strategies would tip the balance in the battle against global warming."

Harald Friedl

Circular Economy's CEO

at the World Economic Forum 2019

CIRCULAR ECONOMY FOR 75 YEARS

Scrap turns to gold

We are increasingly using the term rubbish in everyday speech, and most of us have realized that waste is a raw material on the way to alternative use. We sort to the best of our ability under the kitchen counter, and milk cartons, tin cans, plastic and empty bottles are sent on to a new life. For millennia, the farmer has turned manure into manure and new grass, but in Mo i Rana we can boast of having many decades of experience in turning other people's scrap into first-class steel. And this knowledge has been allowed to develop and spread, and in Mo Industrial Park today almost nothing is wasted. Waste in one place is raw material in another. What has become one of the world's most environmentally friendly industrial clusters could in 2021 celebrate 75 years.

The next time you stand on the ground and look towards the top of the Eiffel Tower, keep in mind that every single week throughout the year, two such towers are melted in the steelworks in Mo i Rana using renewable energy, and everything ends up as rebar for the Nordic region. the market. Celsa Armering can settle on the chest and know that they produce the most environmentally friendly reinforcement steel in the world, and more and more customers want it.

rebar, footprint, greenhouse, Celsa, Mo i Rana

Reinforcing steel produced from recycled scrap and renewable energy creates 85% less CO2 than from ore and pig iron.

As a concept, circular economy is much younger than the industry in Mo i Rana. Internationally, the circular economy is seen as the new economy, where goods and products are to be created with the least possible footprint for our common environment, and Norway is obliged to do so in international agreements. The industry all over the world is looking for solutions for smarter and greener production methods with less waste of raw materials and energy, and in this field, Mo Industripark is an international spearhead.

In Mo i Rana, the changes are marked by the fact that more and more young people with high competence from Norwegian and foreign universities are employed in important positions in the industry. The engineering environments are becoming increasingly multilingual, and the young people with new and exciting knowledge are quickly experiencing that their competence creates results. It is gratifying to note that their clients and an entire local community are very concerned about the same goals, and that the business community competes to be as environmentally friendly as possible.

Veidekke and Celsa Armering work closely together on the development of reinforcement products

When we fold milk cartons in the household, we contribute to important recycling, but often empty bottles, plastic and aluminum packaging are sent far away to be recycled. In Mo Industrial Park, it is a goal that what is waste in one company should be able to be used as raw material by the neighbor. Thus, transport is minimized and the industry's footprint is even smaller.

An easy-to-understand example from Mo Industrial Park is that heated cooling water from the smelters heats the pools at the neighboring company Ranfjord Fiskeprodukter, where smolt is farmed for the coastal aquaculture industry. The rest of the heated water goes in pipes and heats schools and hospitals many kilometers away from the industrial park. Around 500 GWh is recycled in this way.

A couple of other examples are that dust from Elkem and Celsa is captured in their treatment plants and sold as a raw material for concrete production, and that crushed slag from the smelters is used for road construction and for draining fill masses and for road construction.

Also in the future, our industrial production will be dependent on the extraction of natural resources, but in addition to increasing recycling. To minimize the footprint, it will be crucial that the new resources end up in an eternal circle together with valuable natural resources that have already been extracted. If not, the earth we live on will be depleted of precious metals and minerals within a few years.

Circular economy must therefore be part of how we are, how we think and produce and not least how we consume. In Mo i Rana has ambitions to be at the forefront of development.