STENA RECYCLING AB

Their core work

Stena Recycling is one of the Nordic region's largest industrial recycling operators, processing end-of-life materials across metals, electronics, plastics, and waste streams at commercial scale. In the H2020 projects they contributed as an industrial end-user providing real recycling infrastructure, material feedstock, and pilot-scale validation for lab-developed recovery processes. Their role in consortia is to take promising extraction and reprocessing technologies from research groups and test whether they actually work on the messy, contaminated material flows that arrive at a real recycling plant. For partners, they are the reality-check: if a recovery process works at Stena, it has a path to industrial deployment.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their earlier H2020 work (REE4EU, 2015-2019) the focus was almost entirely on rare earth element recovery through high-temperature electrolysis and ionic liquid chemistry. From 2019 onward their portfolio broadened: scaling the rare earth magnet work into a full circular supply chain (SUSMAGPRO) and moving into contaminated plastic recycling with NONTOX. The shift signals a move from single-material metallurgy toward broader ecodesign and circular-economy integration across multiple waste streams.

Moving from single-material metallurgical recovery into broader circular-economy value chains that include contaminated plastics, hazardous additives, and full ecodesign feedback loops.

How they like to work

Stena Recycling consistently joins as a third party rather than leading or formally partnering, which fits the pattern of an industrial operator providing facilities and material flows to research-led consortia. They work in large consortia — 49 unique partners across 13 countries from just three projects — suggesting they are valued as an industrial anchor that many different research groups want access to. For a partner, this means Stena is excellent for real-world validation but unlikely to drive scientific leadership.

Connected to 49 unique partners across 13 countries through only three projects, indicating broad European reach per project. The network is centred on Northern and Western European research groups working on critical raw materials and waste-plastic recovery.

What sets them apart

Most consortium partners in circular-economy projects are universities, research institutes, or technology SMEs — Stena is one of the few actual large-scale industrial recyclers in the Nordic region that can offer a real plant, real feedstock contamination, and real downstream offtake. That makes them one of the most credible industrial validators in Europe for rare-earth and plastic recovery work. If you need proof that a recycling process survives contact with messy industrial reality, Stena is the partner to have.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SUSMAGPRO
  Full circular-economy project for rare-earth magnets, from collection through pilot-scale netshape manufacture — one of the most complete H2020 magnet-recycling value chains.
• NONTOX
  Targets the hardest plastic streams in Europe (WEEE, ELV, CDW) where flame retardants and legacy additives block recycling — high regulatory and market relevance.
• REE4EU
  Early combination of high-temperature electrolysis with ionic liquid extraction for critical rare earths, laying groundwork for their later magnet work.