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Rethinking Abrasives
Explore how Mirka's redesigned abrasives can benefit your sustainability goals.
Performance
Combining advanced coating technologies and durable product design to deliver consistent, high-quality surface finishing. Longer-lasting abrasives improve process efficiency, reduce downtime, and ensure reliable results throughout the product lifecycle while reducing abrasive consumption.
Impact
Reducing dependence on virgin and fossil-based raw materials through renewable and recycled alternatives as well as focusing on lowering manufacturing emissions. By improving resource efficiency across products and packaging, we aim to reduce waste and lower environmental impact throughout the abrasive lifecycle.
Health & Safety
Supporting healthier and safer working environments through dust-free solutions and formaldehyde-free manufacturing technology. By minimizing airborne particles and compounds of concern, we help improve both workplace safety and operator comfort.
Performance Without Compromise
Rethinking Abrasives is a philosophy that focuses on every element of an abrasive and how each element contributes to higher performance while maximizing the abrasive´s service life and minimizing environmental impact. However, we never compromise on quality. Our goal is to maintain a high and consistent cutting rate, enabling faster material removal, fewer abrasive changes, and ultimately higher productivity for the user.
Precision With Every Grain
A key technology supporting this philosophy is our precision coating, a precisely controlled manufacturing process for applying abrasive grains to the backing. This technology creates an optimized abrasive surface with evenly distributed abrasive grains, minimizing clogging and dust loading during sanding. By keeping more abrasive grains uncovered and actively cutting throughout the abrasive's service life, the abrasive delivers consistent cutting performance and reduces variation in the sanding result.
Fast and Consistent Cutting Performance
With our approach, we've developed abrasives that maintain their cutting performance throughout their lifetime, delivering faster, more consistent sanding, a longer service life, and a more productive sanding process. All while we can optimize raw material usage and minimize waste in the production process. This combination of sustained performance and improved efficiency is a key example of the Rethinking Abrasives philosophy in action.
From Linear to Circular
At Mirka, we are rethinking abrasives from the ground up and aiming for a future where every component is part of a truly circular system.
We are rethinking the entire lifecycle of abrasives by shifting from a linear 'produce-use-dispose' model towards a more circular approach by continuously seeking to reuse, minimize waste and reduce the need for virgin raw materials.
The smallest materials can drive the biggest change
Waste Streams to Value Streams
In the fight against climate change, attention has largely focused on visible, large-scale transitions in areas such as energy production, transportation and the built environment. Yet industrial consumables and process inputs also play an important role. Circularity is no longer limited to high-profile materials, it is increasingly extending into the less visible layers of production, including abrasives.
Across Europe, sanding processes generate thousands of tons of abrasive waste every year. Much of this material still contains high-quality raw materials that require significant energy and resources to produce, yet they are discarded after a single use cycle.
Abrasives usually end up in landfills or are incinerated for energy recovery. There is no established recycling route available for used abrasives. We are here to change that.
Future-Proof Abrasive Solutions
Mirka is committed to ensuring that 70% by mass of its products will be made of recycled or renewable materials by 2035. This target will lead to lower product carbon footprints and reduce dependence on fossil-based and virgin raw materials.
HOW DO WE REACH THE TARGET?
Recycled Textiles
Recycled Grains
Renewable Raw Materials
Optimized Raw Material Usage
Developing Recycled Textile Solutions
Textile backings are an important material in many abrasive products. Polyamide has a clear impact on Mirka’s scope 3 emissions from purchased goods. Through Mirka’s recycled textile initiative, we are developing abrasive solutions that use recycled yarns, especially recycled polyamide, to reduce the use of virgin fossil-based materials.
'Every 10,000 tons of recycled nylon can save approximately 70,000 barrels of oil.'
'Mirka’s long-term vision is to increase the use of recycled and bio-based yarns in textile-based abrasive products.'
Mirka’s recycled textile initiative is currently in the development phase, with the first working prototypes already produced and tested in selected applications. Polyamide is well suited for recycling without losing its core properties. As a result, the material can be reused for the same application without compromising quality or performance.
The World’s First Recycled Grains
Through our recycled grains initiative, Mirka is pioneering the world’s first circular grain manufacturing concept for the coated abrasives industry. With a $33 million investment in a groundbreaking recycling plant, we are developing an entirely new way of producing abrasive grains. By transforming abrasive waste and industrial side streams into recycled grains for new abrasive products, we are creating a solution unlike anything currently available.
Lower Emissions, Higher Material Recovery
Abrasive grains are among the most energy-intensive raw materials used in abrasive manufacturing and a major contributor to industry-related carbon emissions. By developing this recycling process, we aim to reduce dependence on virgin raw materials and lower CO₂ emissions while keeping valuable materials in use for longer without compromising abrasive performance or quality.
At the same time, the initiative enables improved material recovery, higher recycling rates, and stronger circularity throughout our customers’ value chains.
Renewable Adhesive Technologies
Today’s abrasives industry still relies heavily on fossil-based adhesives and virgin raw materials. Through our renewable raw materials initiative, we are developing alternative binder technologies using side streams from the forest and wood industries as well as feedstocks derived from biogas sources.
Adhesives play a central role in abrasives, bonding the abrasive grains to the backing and providing the durability needed in demanding applications. Tests have shown that renewable adhesive alternatives can maintain the premium performance, durability, and quality required in high-performance abrasives.
Optimizing Raw Material Usage
Through our proprietary Best Available Technology for abrasive manufacturing, we continuously optimize the use of raw materials. Our unique manufacturing technology is designed to maximize abrasive performance and product lifetime while reducing raw material waste and energy consumption.
Our circular design approach focuses also on refusing unnecessary raw material use while maintaining the premium performance, durability, and quality. By designing for reuse, recycling, and resource efficiency from the earliest development stages, we support lower material consumption and more circular manufacturing processes.
'90% reduction in energy consumption during manufacturing.'
Health & Safety
Airborne particles are tiny solid or liquid substances released into the air during sanding. Some particles are large enough to be seen, such as dust and sanding debris, while many others are invisible to the eye. Despite being unseen, these microscopic particles can remain airborne for extended periods and may significantly impact air quality, health, and workplace safety.
More than 20 years ago, we changed the industry with the dust-free sanding technology by tackling the visible dust challenge. Today, with our new abrasive manufacturing technology, we are taking the next bold step forward. Not only are we minimizing visible dust, but we are also helping to reduce harmful airborne particles that cannot be seen.
Formaldehyde-Free Production
Formaldehyde is a chemical compound widely used in the abrasives industry to produce the adhesives that bond abrasive grains and other components in coated abrasives. In some cases, during abrasive use and storage, small amounts of formaldehyde may be released into the air. Because formaldehyde is classified as a carcinogen and can cause respiratory irritation even at low concentrations, the European Union has introduced increasingly stringent regulations and emission
limits to reduce exposure and improve workplace safety.
Why settle for 'safe enough' when we can go further in reducing harmful substances? With our proprietary abrasive manufacturing technology, we have removed formaldehyde completely from the manufacturing process.
Improving Working Conditions With Every Abrasive
Our dust-free sanding solutions have revolutionised sanding. By combining Abranet® net abrasives with Mirka power tools and dust extraction systems, we significantly reduce airborne dust at the source. The result is a cleaner working environment, improved operator safety, better surface quality, and more efficient sanding processes.
If your process requires alternatives to net abrasives, products such as Ultimax® Ligno also contribute to effective dust extraction. Its innovative patterned coating design helps channel dust away from the sanding surface, improving dust removal efficiency and supporting a cleaner working environment when used together with Mirka power tools and dust extractors.
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