Zero Mine advances to the environmental permitting stage – aiming to recycle critical raw materials in Jyväskylä

The environmental permit application for Zero Mine Solutions Ltd’s planned waste electrical and electronic equipment recycling facility in Jyväskylä, Finland has been officially submitted for processing by the permitting authority. The project will establish a new type of circular economy facility that recovers valuable metals from electronic waste, and, in a later phase, rare earth elements needed by industry. 

During its first phase, the facility will process printed circuit boards recovered from end-of-life electrical and electronic equipment, extracting metals such as gold, silver, copper and palladium. In the future, the facility is also intended to recover rare earth elements, including neodymium. These materials are essential for electrification, renewable energy technologies and the electronics industry. Recovering them from existing products strengthens Europe’s security of supply for critical raw materials while reducing the need for virgin natural resources. 

The submission of the environmental permit application marks the beginning of the official environmental permitting process. The permitting authority will assess the application against the requirements of environmental legislation and determine whether the project can be granted an environmental permit and under what conditions. 

“Many of the critical raw materials Europe needs are already embedded in products currently in use. Zero Mine’s goal is to build a new Finnish circular economy business around recovering these materials. The start of the environmental permitting process is an important milestone on our path towards constructing the facility and launching commercial operations,” says Risto Ryymin, Acting CEO of Zero Mine Solutions Ltd. 

Zero Mine utilizes hydrometallurgical technology developed in Finland to recover metals from waste electrical and electronic equipment as high-purity secondary raw materials. The company’s objective is to build a pre-commercial recycling facility in Jyväskylä with an estimated investment of EUR 40–50 million. 

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