We talk a lot about making an Ikuista last. Made to order, no annual reshuffle of colours, no "new model" unless there's a real reason for one. That isn't a marketing line. It's the whole point of the company, and all of it exists to keep a bike out of the bin for as long as possible.
Why this matters to us
But lasting a long time isn't the same as lasting forever. Frames crack, people crash, metal gets tired. Sooner or later every bike we sell reaches the end, and for years the honest answer to "what happens then" was a vague wave toward the nearest recycling centre. That isn't good enough, so we went looking for something better.
Who Kuusakoski is
Kuusakoski is a Finnish family firm that has been recycling metal for over a hundred years. They've confirmed they'll take a whole Ikuista. Not a stripped frame, the whole bike: tyres, cables, all of it. There's nothing to dismantle and nothing to sort. You hand the bike over and you're done.
The process itself is the interesting part. The bike goes into industrial shredders and then through separators that pull the materials apart, using magnets for the steel and air classifiers and X-ray sorting for the rest. What comes out is clean, sorted raw material that goes back to steel mills and foundries. An old frame can become part of something new, possibly even another bike.
The bigger surprise is that this no longer stops at metal. Kuusakoski recently opened a plant in Hyvinkää that handles composites too, including the glass fibre and carbon fibre that used to be a dead end. There the fibre is broken down and replaces freshly quarried limestone in cement, while the plastic that binds it is burned in place of fossil fuel. So even a carbon frame, which not long ago meant landfill, now has a route.
What this means for you
Recycling was never the goal. The goal is that you ride the bike for fifteen years and never have to think about any of this. But a promise about lasting means little if there's no answer for the day the lasting runs out, and now there is one.
We'll publish the practical details soon: where to drop a bike off, when we'll come and collect it instead, and the certificate you get back afterwards so you know it was actually recycled.
Links and more information
- Kuusakoski composite recycling: https://www.kuusakoski.com/fi/finland/ajankohtaista/2024/kuusakosken-uutuuslaitos-on-vihrean-siirtyman-puuttuva-palanen3/
- Kuusakoski services: https://www.kuusakoski.com/fi/finland/palvelumme/
- Kuusakoski home page and nearest service point: https://www.kuusakoski.com/fi/finland/
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