The three-year project HANS aimed at providing Swedish foundries with the means for a significantly reduced environmental footprint by increasing the reuse of today's residual products. The purpose of the project was to create concepts for circular material flows where the metal-containing residual products are reused to the maximum with minimal transport distances. Fifteen companies and organizations have worked together for three years on various practical cases to reintegrate chips, scale, slag, and grinding dust, back into the manufacturing process. The project goals were well met. A total of eight different concepts were formulated, three of which were implemented already during the project time: remelting of steel chips from an external actor, separation and recycling of cutting fluid from grinding dust, and separation of metal fractions from furnace slag. Additionally, a novel technology for the direct reduction of metallic by-products with hydrogen was investigated. At the time of application, this method was still relatively untested.

Through the project, Swedish foundries have formulated the technical and economic conditions to continue producing equivalent or better products, but with a significantly reduced environmental footprint, as the possibilities for using residual products from production have increased. New local networks have been created, reducing the amount of material transport while maintaining the value of the metals to a greater extent. Thanks to the great commitment from the participating companies, activity and time plans could often be exceeded. By including the entire chain of foundries, processing companies, and technology suppliers represented in the project group, not only technical solutions but also future business models could be formulated and tested. The industry organizations Svenskt Aluminium and Swedish Foundry Organisation contributed with additional industry anchoring and dissemination of the project results.