Case study: Ekokaari’s New C&D Waste Sorting Line in Finland

Founded in 2018, Ekokaari Oy is a Finnish circular economy company providing waste management and recycling services to businesses across Southeast Finland. The company processes approximately 50,000 tonnes of waste annually, including construction and demolition waste (C&D), contaminated soils, and liquid industrial waste.

Its customers include construction companies, industrial plants, trade sector operators, waste management companies, and transportation firms.

Ekokaari sees new technology as an important part of improving the efficiency and sustainability of its waste processing value chains.

In 2024, the company partnered with Azortum to upgrade its C&D waste sorting line at the Keltakankaa Waste Center. The existing equipment had been operating for more than ten years and was approaching the end of its technical service life.

Instead of just replacing the worn-out equipment, Ekokaari decided to invest in improving the sorting process. Emphasis was also put on increasing material recovery and preparing the line for future requirements.

"The investment enhanced operational reliability, cost efficiency, and the recovery and quality of the materials produced," explains Aki Koivula, CEO of Ekokaari Oy.

The development of the facility has also been shaped by Finland's waste legislation and circular economy objectives, particularly the push to increase recycling rates for construction and demolition waste.

"Our target was to double the amount of material recycled through our facility, with a specific focus on increasing the recovery of plastics," says Koivula.

Even before the upgrade, only a small share of the material processed at the facility ended up in final disposal. Approximately:

• 15% was recycled as a substitute for virgin raw materials.
• 50% was used in energy production as biofuel and recycled fuel.
• 35% was utilised in land construction.

Naturally, the next step was to recover more material at higher quality while improving the reliability and efficiency of the sorting process.

Azortum was responsible for designing and engineering the upgraded sorting line.

The project included replacing the conveyors in the central section of the line and adding new separation equipment, including an eddy current separator and a permanent magnet.

One of the most important decisions concerned the old ballistic separator. The worn-out unit needed to be replaced, but Ekokaari also wanted greater flexibility for handling different material streams in the future.

Instead of installing another ballistic separator, Azortum integrated a three-fraction air separator.

The new system improves separation while giving Ekokaari greater flexibility to adapt the sorting process to different materials. It has also proved to be less prone to failure than the previous ballistic separator.

As Ekokaari's original sorting line had been operating since 2013, the upgraded line entered operation in September 2024.

Two years after commissioning, Ekokaari says the upgraded line has met its expectations.

Compared with the previous system, operational reliability and production efficiency have improved significantly. The target of doubling the amount of material recycled through the facility has been achieved, while better separation has also increased the purity of the resulting fractions.

According to Ekokaari, the new line has so far been able to handle every material flow entering the process.

Aki Koivula highlights one result in particular:

"In particular, the operational reliability and ease of maintenance have been a positive surprise, even though a lot of attention was paid to them during the design and assembly phase."

Replacing the ballistic separator with the three-fraction air separator has also proved successful. In daily operation, the air separator has been less prone to failure while providing significantly better separation capacity.

For Koivula, the most important benefits of the investment are straightforward:

"Definitely operational reliability and increased capacity. In addition, maintenance costs have become more predictable and reduced."

But no C&D waste stream is completely predictable.

Since commissioning, Ekokaari has encountered materials such as video cassettes and other long, tangled objects that can create problems around rotating equipment and conveyor transfer points.

These materials remain difficult to process automatically, but regular weekly maintenance has helped keep conveyors and separators operating without interruption.

It is a practical reminder that designing a reliable C&D sorting line is not only about nominal capacity or individual machines. The system also has to cope with the irregular materials and operating conditions that appear in everyday production.

The upgrade has given Ekokaari a more reliable and productive foundation, but development of the line is an ongoing process. One of their main priorities for the coming years is more accurate plastics sorting and further improvement of material recovery.

For Ekokaari, the 2024 investment was therefore more than a replacement of aging machinery. It created a more reliable and adaptable sorting process that can continue to develop as material streams, recycling targets, and market requirements change.