Market

| The European Plastics Converters (EuPC) association unanimously re-elected Michael Kundel as its president. Kundel, CEO of Renolit, is renewing his two-year term as EuPC President.

| Describing India as the world’s fifth-largest producer of e-waste, BIR E-Scrap Committee member Surendra Patawari Borad explained to the body’s latest meeting in Berlin that the government had introduced an extended producer responsibility system for e-waste earlier this year which proposed a 30% collection target for the first two years, rising to 70% after seven years.

| Some countries considered used clothing to be a product generated by expert sorting operations according to well-recognised market specifications. However, there is disagreement within EU member states as to whether used clothing/textiles should be considered waste in different circumstances and when such items cease to become waste. In addition, some countries in other parts of the world regard used clothing as a threat to new clothing production, thus giving rise to calls for a ban on used clothing imports.

| Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI) delivers its Kompogas technology for Europe’s largest biogas plant for dry anaerobic digestion. The facility, built in the north of Italy, will process approximately 100,000 tonnes of organic municipal solid waste per year.

| Alba SE, publicly quoted subsidiary of Alba Group, was back in profit in 2015 and expects to sustain the positive trend in the current financial year.

| India’s decision to ban plastic scrap imports had left the market “in limbo” and was likely to result in substantial job losses, not least among those of the country’s recycling units which relied on supplies from overseas, according to BIR Plastics Committee Chairman Surendra Patawari Borad of Gemini Corp.

| Vehicle airbags constituted “a big issue for the shredder industry to worry about” and merited further scrutiny from the safety perspective, contended BIR Shredder Committee board member George Adams Jr of US-based SA Recycling. “All of us need to be really careful when handling airbags,” he insisted.

| Container security and an update on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership were the headline topics of the first plenary meeting of the BIR International Trade Council (ITC) to take place under the chairmanship of Michael Lion of China-based Everwell Resources Ltd.

| According to a recent ASSOCHAM-cKinetics study, India's electronic waste (e-waste) generated per year is expected to grow at a CAGR of 30%, rising from 1.8 million metric tonnes at present to 5.2 million by 2020.

| The recent surge in ferrous scrap prices “did not last long enough to adequately repair the collection system”, the latest meeting of the BIR Ferrous Division was told by its President, William Schmiedel of Sims Metal Management in the USA. As a result, he added, there was little evidence of supply overhang in the market.

| Doppstadt showed a variety of new machines at Ifat.

| With paper recycling companies remaining under extreme economic and regulatory pressure, “there is no room for a further deterioration”, the BIR Paper Divison meeting in Berlin was warned by its President, Reinhold Schmidt of Recycling Karla Schmidt.

| The non-ferrous metals recycling industry should focus on its strengths of sorting, processing and logistics rather than on trying to second-guess price movements, it was argued by European Metal Recycling’s Murat Bayram at the BIR Non-Ferrous Metals Division meeting in Berlin.

| BIR is spearheading the formation of a new body “to take forward the message of facilitating free and fair trade of recyclables with minimum regulatory controls”, it was announced at the body’s Annual General Assembly in Berlin on May 31.