Petri Ikonen

Shredded back to life!

PostNord Strålfors in Finland generates 87 tons of paper waste every year. A magical machine gives everything a new life.

“Over the course of a year, the shreds of paper are converted into 600,000 rolls of toilet paper,” explains Petri Ikonen.

→ Savings of 20,000 euros Back in 2014, when PostNord Stålfors in Finland decided to buy a paper shredder, the decision was based purely on financial aspects: “All confidential material was separated from ordinary paper waste and processed by an external company, which was an expensive solution. The purchase of a paper shredder has resulted in annual savings of around 20,000 euros,” says Petri Ikonen, Project Manager at Strålfors.

→ Increased security In conjunction with the purchase, the company also decided to stop separating the different types of paper waste. Today, both confidential material and ordinary paper waste are dealt with securely in-house. “Given that we shred all the paper ourselves, we can ensure that our customers’ confidential material doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. This has raised the level of security,” says Petri.

→ Shredding as a secondary assignment

Petri and his closest colleagues are not the only ones who operate the machine. Both warehouse and office staff also shred paper as a secondary assignment to their primary tasks. The shredder transforms the paper into pellets that are small enough to meet security standards, but large enough to use for further processing.

→ From paper waste to toilet paper

The shredder also has a positive impact on the environment. According to Petri’s calculations, Strålfors generates around 87 tons of paper waste per year, 72 of which are shredded on-site. The machine creates small paper pellets that are processed, returned, stored and transported for further processing. The tiny shredded paper pellets are used as material feed in soft paper production, resulting in around 600,000 freshly produced rolls of toilet paper every year!

→ Size does matter PostNord Strålfors uses a paper shredder from HSM that is around six meters long, three meters tall and two meters wide. According to Petri, the original plan was to buy one that was even bigger. “If you’re thinking about buying a shredder, size does matter: the bigger, the better!”

Petri Ikonen

Position at PostNord:

Manager, Project Management Office at PostNord Strålfors in Vanda, Finland.

Closest colleagues:

“Mikko Räisänen, Tiina Salmivuori and Eero Markelin, who are all members of the Project Management Office team.”