Sinituote, a Finnish company manufacturing cleaning and home supplies, is one of Finland’s most esteemed brands1 and a long-standing partner of Fortum Recycling & Waste. The sustainability and quality of Sinituote’s product portfolio are important to consumers and the company alike, which is showcased in diligent development work.
Working together to combat freezing temperatures
The result of Sinituote and Fortum’s latest collaboration is a Kungs snow brush, composed of Fortum Circo® recycled plastic compound. Fortum Circo® is a recycled plastic material made of Finnish post-consumer plastic waste. The material can be modified to suit the specific needs of different customers and applications. For the snow brush, the material needed to withstand freezing temperatures. The finished product is thus a great example of putting the raw material’s high quality requirements into a proper test.
“We did the first test rounds ourselves with a mixture comprising mostly Fortum Circo® basic grade. We could already tell that the quality was even better than before. Based on these tests, we made a request for Fortum and they developed the finished raw material solely for us. Developing this new recycled material together with Fortum took a bit over six months in total,” says Jarkko Heino, Department Manager, Plastics at Sinituote.
“Previously, recycled plastic has had some reputation issues regarding durability. This step forward that Fortum Recycling & Waste has taken proves that in the future, it might very well be possible that we no longer need virgin plastic in our production,” Heino continues.
Recycled materials will become more common with the help of forerunners
Fortum Recycling & Waste’s goal is to come up with solutions that encourage and make it easy for companies to use recycled plastic. Fortum has created its own Fortum Circo® Lab concept for co-creating solutions together with customers. The aim is to make the development of recycled materials smoother and help customers increase the use of recycled raw materials in their production. In Fortum Circo® Lab, the customer and Fortum work together to develop materials based on the customer’s needs, goals, and resources. In practice, modifying the Fortum Circo basic grade into a compound is done by adding e.g. cellulose fibre or talcum to the mixture to make the material harder, more durable or flexible – depending on the need.
“The new recycled plastic we developed in collaboration with Sinituote is one of the first recycled plastic compounds that we have created together with a customer. Sinituote is our long-standing customer, so we immediately wanted to support them when they expressed a need for a new material. As a result, we co-developed a material that can withstand cold, even freezing temperatures, like never before. To make the use of recycled plastic products more common, we need forerunners such as Sinituote – companies that are ready to work on the material solutions that suit their products,” says Mikko Koivuniemi, Fortum’s Business Development Manager, Plastics.
The pros of recycled plastic drive sustainable innovations
This new recycled plastic has proven to be just as high-quality as expected. Other great qualities of the new material include utilising Finnish post-consumer plastic waste, sustainable production process verified by Fortum, as well as a carbon footprint that is less than half compared to virgin plastic.
“An important part of our product development is continuously monitoring our carbon footprint, because we want to make the material as carbon neutral as possible and suitable for technically more challenging products,” Koivuniemi says.
Promoting circular economy and minimising environmental impacts are a common goal for Fortum Recycling & Waste and Sinituote. Collaboration around themes of sustainability is the key to new innovations and sustainable solutions of the future – a frost-resistant recycled plastic is an excellent example of that.
1Source: https://www.taloustutkimus.fi/ajankohtaista/uutisia/top10-suomen-arvostetuimmat-brandit-2022.html