UPM drives towards a circular economy
Two years ago, UPM Timber and UPM Plywood’s Finnish mills became the first UPM businesses to achieve its Zero Solid Waste project’s recycling targets. Having achieved this first goal, UPM Timber and UPM Plywood — along with the rest of the company — have set their sights on achieving the Zero Solid Waste to Landfill goal by 2030. This means not depositing any waste in landfill sites or incinerating waste without energy recovery within the next 11 years. To meet this ambitious goal, they will harness innovative new technologies, improve waste collection and reuse to create a true circular economy. Overall, UPM is currently about halfway towards achieving its zero waste to landfill goal, while UPM Timber has already reached this ambitious goal. With that said, UPM Timber continues to work on more innovative ways to meet the criteria, so that it remains a zero waste operation well into the future. Lampola explains that it can be a challenge to find a “commercially sensible and direct destinations for collected raw materials,” especially after accounting for prices and use cases.