Market

The recycling industry remains one of the world’s “best-kept secrets” and its story needs to be told to future generations in order to help them in the preservation of the planet. So said BIR World President Ranjit Singh Baxi at the latest meeting of the World Council of Recycling Associations (WCRA), at which he made major announcements surrounding Global Recycling Day.

The World Steel Association (Worldsteel) has launched the 2018 edition of Sustainable Steel – Indicators 2018 and industry initiatives.

Research and development projects are under way in several countries aimed mainly at recovering natural/synthetic fibres to provide the garment industry with new raw materials or transforming/agglomerating textile materials essentially for insulation purposes.

A waste and resource management specialist from within the UK government’s Department for International Trade has expressed confidence that a Brexit agreement will be reached between the UK and the rest of the EU.

New provisions such as the circular economy package from the EU have given a huge boost to the use of recycled materials. Alpla welcomes this development, but is calling for consistent thinking and actions.

At the end of September, Brussels hosted the kick off meeting of a new European research project, polynSPIRE, aimed at improving the overall performance of plastics recycling looking for a more sustainable plastic value chain.

“Tariffs are a very blunt instrument and can give a lot of unintended consequences,” declared Edward Meir in his guest presentation to the latest meeting of the BIR Non-Ferrous Metals Division on October 7.

According to IHS Markit, rapidly changing consumer expectations for plastics and increasing regulations or bans are creating market challenges and disconnects for producers

Despite the Section 232 measures adopted by the Trump administration, US scrap markets still rely on exports. Indeed, Turkey’s reliance on US scrap imports has increased since the start of the current year, it was revealed by Fastmarkets metals analyst Lee Allen in his guest presentation to the latest meeting of the BIR Ferrous Division, held in London on October 6.

At the BIR London Convention’s “Workshop on the Bulgarian Eco-Tax on Second Hand Clothing” on 8 October 2018, the Bulgarian Association of Recyclers and Traders of Second Hand Clothes (ARTSHC) explained the proposed changes to its national laws affecting second hand clothing.

Rolf Willeke, Statistics Advisor of the BIR Ferrous Division, summarises below the main findings in his January-June 2018 update presentation.