Nowadays Finish foundries are confronted with the challenge of how to dispose their sand. Another problem are the high shipping and transport costs. At this point, it was Toni Wesin who went into the game. Toni recognized that a lot of foundry sand could be saved by using adequate sand preparing equipment. Finally, Finish foundries hired Wesin – at that time a commercial agent and technician – to find a fast solution for their problem.
Wesins plan was to solve it smart and quickly. In fact, the process is simple. The foundries bring their sand to Resand Oy. Afterwards, the sand is brought back to them – fully recycled and at low costs.
“We started this project in 2016 and were supported by Aalto university in Espoo, Finland. In detail it was professor Juhani Orkas who supported us to develop the first type of sand recycling machine”, stated Wesin in the interview with Foundry-Planet. 2016 Wesin bought an old Finish glass factory that he later transformed into a sand recycling company.
At that time, in 2016, Toni had been working with several Finnish foundries for several years since 2006. From 2006 to 2016, the company's main activity was specifically scrap metal recycling. In 2016, the first sand recycling plant was started to be built and scrap metal recycling was completely stopped in 2020 and the company started to focus on sand recycling only.
The special thing is that Resand Oy’s sand regeneration machines are all equipped with a thermomechanical system
In fact, it took around half a year to develop the sand recycling machine. In figures, Wesin spent more than 1,000 hours for its engineering. And, as he revealed, it’s not yet finished, because there are still several other prototypes in process. The special thing is that the sand recycling machines of Resand Oy are all equipped with a thermomechanical system - which makes a big difference in comparison to conventional models. Another dissimilarity is that Resand Oy offers leasing contracts for their sand recycling machines, which means that installation and maintenance are included. So, foundries have the choice between sand recycling directly through Resand Oy, or to lease one (or more) of their sand recycling machines.
“We believe in this brand-new, patented innovation, and we are proud to see how we succeed in a very short time”, so Raif Nisametdin, CEO of Resand Oy
“Besides important markets like Spain and Germany there are many potential markets for Resand Oy”, revealed Raif Nisametdin, the Chairman of Resand Oy. “At the beginning, the foundries wanted to buy our sand recycling machines, but it’s our business model to lease them to them. We believe in this brand-new, patented innovation, and we are proud to see how we succeed in a very short time”, so Nisametdin. “Our advantage is that we understand how this sensitive market works. But our success is based on good references too. What we also have is a strong marketing and sales department. Nevertheless, Toni is the maker here, the fighter, and the brain behind all”, stated Nisametdin.
Information:
Resand Oy is a sand recycling company that employs around 40 people in Finland. The target until 2028 is to have around 300 leasing contracts all over the world. The advantages for foundries, which collaborate with Resand Oy, are no landfill or logistic problems anymore as well as better and smaller grains. Furthermore, recycled sand has a better casting quality and surface, and finally, less binder is necessary.
