Vantaa Energy plans giant waste sorting facility to recover plastics and metals from household rubbish

Vantaa Energy is planning a large-scale mechanical waste sorting facility in Vantaa that would recover recyclable plastics and metals from household rubbish bags, Finnish public broadcaster Yle reports. A construction decision could come as early as next year, with the facility operational no sooner than 2029.

The planned facility would process all mixed waste received by Vantaa Energy, currently around 200,000 tonnes per year from the Uusimaa region. Operating around the clock and on weekends, capacity could reach 400,000 tonnes annually, equivalent to roughly one third of all mixed waste produced across Finland.

At the facility, rubbish bags would be torn open and their contents processed using conveyor belts, screens, crushers and robotics to separate recyclable materials. Initially, the focus would be on plastics and metals, with textiles and cardboard potentially added later. Items such as ketchup bottles, shampoo bottles and food tins would be captured in the process.

“We Finns are not perfect sorters. That is why this kind of mechanical facility sorting is needed,” said Kalle Patomeri, business director at Vantaa Energy.

Currently, mixed waste from households goes directly to incineration at Vantaa Energy’s power plant, meaning large quantities of recyclable materials are burned. Packaging plastic in particular ends up in mixed waste bins and, as a result, in the incinerator.

Finland faces annual EU penalty over plastic recycling shortfall

Finland pays approximately 90 million euros per year to the EU in a levy based on the volume of packaging plastic that does not reach recycling. The rate is 0.80 euros per kilogram of unrecycled packaging plastic. The new facility could recover around 20,000 tonnes of packaging plastic annually, potentially saving the Finnish state between 10 and 15 million euros per year in EU levies under optimistic projections. If the facility ran at full capacity, savings could reach 20 to 30 million euros annually.

Finland currently recycles around one third of its packaging plastic waste, far below the EU target of 55 percent by 2030. Only one third of non-deposit consumer packaging is sorted by households.

The new facility would cost approximately 60 million euros to build. Vantaa Energy could generate revenue by selling recovered metals, and potentially recovered plastic in the future. The company could also reduce its spending on emissions permits, as less plastic would be burned. Vantaa Energy also indicated it may build its own chemical plastic recycling facility.

A similar but significantly smaller mixed waste sorting facility exists in Lahti, operated by waste company Salpakierto. Larger facilities of this type are found in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe, including one operated by Tekniska Verken in Linköping, Sweden.

Vantaa Energy said households should continue sorting their own waste even if the facility is built, as home sorting produces cleaner material streams than mechanical processing. The facility would be built as a hall on the site of Vantaa Energy’s existing waste-to-energy plant at Långmåssebergen in Vantaa. Vantaa Energy is owned by the cities of Helsinki and Vantaa.