In Varkaus, in the South-East of Finland, thousands of paper milk and orange
juice cartons, crushed into blocks
weighing nearly a tonne each, covering an area of 1,400 m2, are being
transformed into paper card, steam and
electricity, and uniquely in the world, into aluminium powder.

To the delight of their clients, Finish company Corenso, the leading paper
card manufacturer in Europe,
transforms milk cartons into packaging materials, plastic film, cotton
reels, salt jars, boxes or fireworks cases. All
over the world, says Jukka Auvinen, Corenso's Director of Purchasing, paper
pulp and card industries are turning
to recycled materials, in particular paper food and drinks cartons or wood
fibre where 70% of the packing is from
wood fibre. They also know how to convert the polyethylene (a plastic
lining) of the packaging of drinks cartons
into heat and electricity.

But the factory in Varkaus is the only one in the world which can recycle
the aluminium film of the carton, which
keeps the product fresh, into 90% pure aluminium. 3,000 tonnes of aluminium
powder are sold each year to the
German metals industry. The new production chain needed an investment of
Euro 34 million. It went into service
in August 2001. Drinks cartons and other recycled packaging produces 85,000
tonnes a year of paper/cardboard
and tubes. Production will be gradually increased to 100,000 tonnes by 2008,
according to Mr Auvinen.

The plastic material from old milk and fruit juice cartons goes to make
steam and electricity in an enormous
turbine. Annual production (250 million kwh) is enough to heat 40,000
Finnish homes for several months during
seasons where the temperatures drop to minus 20. In practice, it also
supplies the site with energy as well as
six other factories in the immediate proximity, two belonging to Corenso and
four belonging to its parent
company, Stora Enso, the fourth largest paper company in the world. It is
profitable due to this integration into a
large industrial complex. The incinerator, which crushes the aluminium, also
treats beer and cola cans which
missed the initial sorting and are mixed up in the bales. If the cans are
not aluminium, they are sorted out and
sold to recyclers with other metal waste, like the wires which hold the
bales together.

With its showcase of 100% recycling, and energy recovery, Corenso's pilot
plant has the benefit of a favourable
national climate in terms of recycling and environmental action. In Finland,
the ecological world champion, sorting
of household waste has been practised for the last 20 years whilst it as yet
to really become a habit for the
French. 80% of packaging is re-used. But 5.2 million inhabitants in a
country as large as three-fifths the size of
France, is very few. Corenso therefore has to import each year nearly 50,000
tonnes of used cartons from
Germany, more than a third of all food cartons collected in that country.
Officially this pilot factory emits "very little
waste" into the atmosphere. But the overall global environmental impact of
the facility yet have to be established.