United by Expertise – Together for a National Circular Steel Future
At Olsen Metal, we’re proud to participate in a new national project with an ambitious goal: enabling the reuse of stainless steel directly – without melting it down.
The project, titled “Recirculating Stainless Steel – A Path to Circular Production,” is supported by Industriens Fond and brings together a strong alliance of companies, universities and industrial clusters to develop new methods, business models and documentation tools that make it easier and more cost-effective to reuse stainless steel locally in Denmark.
Partnere i projektet:
- DTU Construct
- Produktionsklyngen MADE
- SDU Life Cycle Engineering
- UCH Holstebro
- AH Metal Solutions
- Olsen Metal
- Steel Products
- Grundfos
- HJ Hansen
- Frese Metal og Stålstøberi
- Asgaard Metals
- Finansiering
- Industriens Fond supports the project with 6,73 mio. Danish kroner.
Duration: January 2025 – June 2027
Official Title: Recirculate Stainless Steel – A Path to Circular Production
Why stainless steel matters
Stainless steel is a valuable resource. It contains critical metals such as nickel and chromium – both expensive and limited in global supply. In Denmark, more than 100 small and medium-sized companies work with stainless steel. Every time the material is processed, up to half of it becomes surplus. Today, most of that surplus is exported and melted down abroad, losing both traceability and quality in the process.
But melting stainless steel isn’t just energy-intensive – it also erases the original qualities of the material. That’s because stainless steel isn’t one single alloy, but a wide range of grades, each designed for specific purposes. Some are more corrosion-resistant, others more heat-tolerant or formable. When these grades are melted together, their individual properties are lost – much like mixing different colors of modeling clay. As Professor Niels Skat Tiedje from DTU Construct explains in this post, we (the industry) have to get better at reusing stainless steel without melting it. Metaphorically speaking he explain; combining red and green clay doesn’t give you bright new colors – it gives you a brownish lump. The same goes for stainless steel: valuable, tailored properties are lost in the mix.
That’s why the GRUS project aims to make reuse – not remelting – the new standard.
Reuse of stainless steel – without remelting
Industriens Fond youtube video, presented by MADE. With statements from professor Niels Skat Tiedje and Kasper Mygind Madsen, Chief Engineer at Grundfoss
What Olsen Metal brings to the table
At Olsen Metal, we work with precision metal spinning in stainless steel – often in small production runs where quality, consistency and traceability are essential. We see a huge potential in being able to reuse offcuts and surplus metal in a way that maintains the material’s integrity and quality.
Our role in the project is to contribute our knowledge from daily production and help test and validate new methods for sorting and reusing stainless steel. For us, this is both a matter of reducing CO₂ emissions and strengthening our supply chain.
Circularity as a competitive edge
The project has clear goals:
- Increase the reuse of stainless steel in Denmark
- Lower the climate impact and resource consumption of the steel industry
- Help companies reduce costs and dependency on imported raw materials
- Develop business models that make reuse financially attractive
- Support ESG documentation and reporting
By participating in “Recirculating Stainless Steel – A Path to Circular Production,” we hope to inspire more companies to take part in building a greener, more resource-efficient industry.
Because steel that stays in the loop, strengthens both business and the planet.