Kan Sverige öka självförsörjningen av fosfor? En fallstudie av Ragn-Sells och EasyMining

Sammanfattning

Phosphorus is essential for food production, but Sweden and the EU depend on imported phosphate rock, mineral fertilisers and feed phosphates from concentrated supply chains. Price fluctuations, trade disruptions and geopolitical tensions have made this dependence more visible. Although phosphorus is present in wastewater, sewage sludge and other residual flows, increased recycling is constrained by the conditions under which recovered phosphorus products are regulated, approved and brought into use. This thesis explores how increased phosphorus recycling can strengthen the resilience of Sweden’s phosphorus supply, with particular attention to the benefits of recycling, the barriers to development and upscaling of recycling practices, and the policy measures that could support increased recovery and use. The study is based on a qualitative case study of Ragn-Sells/EasyMining, combining semi-structured interviews with relevant literature, policy documents and company material. The study finds that phosphorus recycling can contribute to resilience by broadening the supply base, reducing import dependence and making better use of phosphorus-containing flows already present in Sweden. However, recovered phosphorus must become a safe, accepted and usable product, and different recovery pathways have different implications for quality, risk, market access and agricultural uptake. The main barriers concern fragmented governance, the absence of binding phosphorus recovery requirements in Sweden and origin-based restrictions in EU feed legislation. The study concludes that phosphorus recycling requires governance that connects recovery requirements, product quality, market access, investment conditions and demand, so that recovered phosphorus can move from residual flow to practical use.