BIR News

Entering the Waste vs. Raw Material Discussion

The Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), Brussels, continues to monitor and take part in European discussions on the trade status of wastes versus raw materials.

EUROFER (the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries) and EFR (the European Ferrous Recovery and Recycling Federation) have announced the joint publication of a discussion paper on “when waste ceases to be waste” for ferrous scrap. Both organizations stress that this clarification is of crucial significance.

Over the last 25 years, Europe has recognized the importance of using recovered materials for the conservation of natural resources. Since 1991, the Council of Ministers has urged EU Member States to “take appropriate measures to encourage the recovery of waste by means of recycling, re-use or reclamation or any other process with a view to extracting secondary raw materials.” At the same time, waste was defined as “any substance or object which the holder discards or is required to discard.”

Although the recognition of secondary raw materials is enshrined in European Union law, the contradiction lies in the fact that across Europe, it has never been clarified unambiguously from which moment onwards waste becomes a secondary raw material.

However, the advantages of such a clarification would be considerable because it would lead to an optimized process for iron recovery from iron and steel scrap and would thereby increase the industry’s competitiveness by alleviating the cost burden associated with waste.

Over the past 10 years, many studies were done, parliamentary questions raised and resolutions passed, supporting the need to determine the point at which recovery has taken place. The Symposium organized by the BIR in February 1999 and the EU Recycling Forum, conducted through 1999, supported a case-by-case approach as proposed by the European Commission.

As a result of these industry efforts, the Technical Adaptation Committee of Member States representatives chaired by the European Commission has been working on the issue since the beginning of this year with a mandate to develop a clarification of the waste/non-waste distinction for metal scrap.

To facilitate the political decision, the industries concerned have developed a comprehensive information package for the committee, and materials deemed controversial enough to block a political agreement were taken out.

[The Bureau of International Recycling will be holding its Fall Convention in Dusseldorf, Germany, Nov. 5-7 to discuss this and other issues.]