BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL RECYCLING CELEBRATES 75TH ANNIVERSARY
The Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) celebrated its 75th anniversary at the end of May with a conference in Amsterdam. ‘No better place to celebrate the history and future of recycling’, says Andreas Krawczik, a member of the board of the Dutch Waste Management Association. ‘After all, the Netherlands is the birthplace of the BIR and a leader in developing high-quality recycling technologies. This was a great opportunity to showcase that.’
BIR represents the global recycling industry, with a membership consisting of 950 companies and 37 national associations from 70 countries. Andreas Krawczik, managing director of REMONDIS Nederland, attaches great importance to a universal language for the international recycling world. ‘We must learn to speak the same language if we are going to work well together. We vigorously promote the recovery of raw materials from waste. Without the raw materials we recover it would not be possible to keep the wheels of industry turning. To show the value of our activities we have to move away from using the term “secondary raw materials”, because it sounds like a second best option.’
FIVE TIMES WEMBLEY STADIUM
A cleaner world begins with a common language and mutual understanding. ‘I’m pushing for a clear definition of circularity, because it has become a portmanteau concept which everyone can use to tell their own story. I see an important role for the BIR in forging a unified global whole.’ For much of the world recycling is still a remote possibility. ‘In Africa plastic is still burnt by the roadside in large quantities, simply because there is no waste collection infrastructure, not even to take it to a controlled landfill site. Every day around the world 1.6 million tonnes of municipal waste is dumped in the environment. This amount of waste is enough to fill Wembley Stadium five times over! A further 2 million tonnes is landfilled.’
REDUCING CARBON EMISSIONS
High-quality recycling considerably reduces global carbon emissions, because waste is reprocessed into raw materials. ‘As techniques improve we can recover ever larger amounts of raw materials and the purer the input, the higher the quality of the output. So it’s also about optimising the whole value chain.’ Of course, recycling is also a business and it creates jobs, but according to Krawczik there is an overlooked silver lining. ‘International trade and cooperation lead to political stability, not only because we all depend on each other, but also because we all have something to offer one other. It bridges social and cultural divisions.’
‘I see an important role for the BIR in forging a unified global whole.’
