Clearing the Paths

Scrap recyclers have enjoyed expanding global markets for their materials from 2000 to 2010, representing a tremendous opportunity.

Gaining and maintaining access to those markets, however, is an ongoing challenge that can be outright frustrating when a government or customs agency issues a sudden procedural change.

There have been numerous examples of such changes, ones that sometimes occur so quickly that they take effect while a previously approved shipment is making its way across an ocean.

A LITTLE QUIETER

In 2009, the customs agency of India earned a distinction for causing recyclers to scramble to meet proposed changes.

During much of 2009, the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), Brussels, was negotiating with more than one government agency in India regarding rules changes that greatly restricted the customary flow of scrap materials.

July 21, 2009, the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) issued a notification taking effect immediately regarding the control of recyclables imported, despite ongoing efforts made by the BIR and its Ambassador for the Indian Sub-Continent Ikbal Nathani.

Representatives from BIR and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI), Washington, D.C., had made a joint visit to authorities in Delhi in May of 2009 to try to avoid the implementation of what the groups deemed “inappropriate controlling measures for nonhazardous recyclables.”

The new regulation required the exporter to fill out a form and to produce a pre-shipment inspection certificate issued by an inspection agency in the case of import of the following Basel nonhazardous materials (which the Indian MOEF unilaterally considers to be hazardous).

These materials included ferrous and nonferrous scrap; electronic scrap; metal-bearing material from smelting and refining; mill scaling from iron and steel manufacturing; and all paper and cardboard scrap.

The issue also was brought to the attention of the EU Commission and with UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) as to the incompatibility of these new unilateral measures with EU shipment regulations and the Basel Convention (which do not consider the above materials to be hazardous).

A business confidentiality aspect raised by the new regulation also concerned recyclers, who did not wish to see their confidential trading information disclosed.

In a write-up prepared for the BIR Web site, the group’s Director of Environmental Affairs Ross Bartley wrote that the MOEF policy was trying to address several potential problems in one broad and sudden swoop.

Parts of the policy were designed to ensure radioactive scrap was not being imported, while another goal was keeping ammunition out of scrap cargoes.

Among the problems cited by Bartley caused by the breadth of the rule was that trace amounts of radioactivity are present in all loads as background radiation, and thus a third-party certification agency was unlikely to label loads as being completely free of radioactivity.

“There are problems with the requirements of such a certificate in finding third-party certifiers willing to take on the liability of stating the ‘consignment does not contain radioactive-contaminated material in any form’ [as this] is a physical and chemical impossibility since the 1950s,” wrote Bartley.

A RESOLUTION

Not until November of 2009 did recyclers and Indian authorities seem to come to better terms. On Nov. 19, the BIR Web site (www.bir.org) carried news that “simplified procedures for shipments of metal scrap to India have been accepted, BIR was informed by the Metal Recycling Association in India (MRAI) and BIR’s Ambassador for the Indian Subcontinent Ikbal Nathani.”

The new agreement was reached following a series of MRAI meetings in Delhi with the Ministry of Steel and the MOEF.

According to the BIR news release, “Public notice no.17 2009/2014, dated Nov. 13, 2009, can be consulted under http://former.bir.org/private/legislation/india_legislation.asp and should be read in the context of the previously published MOEF notices.”

As of November, MRAI reported that a new registration form required “only basic details such as name of the company, address, import/export code, etc.”

Also, shippers could register with the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) of just one Indian state rather than with each state separately. “It is a one-time registration, and once the traders register with their respective SPCB they will be free to import,” the BIR and MRAI state.

Another “new, simplified form” was promised by the MOEF for the SPCB application as well.

The MOEF’s “Form 9” was still required, but no chemical analysis was needed, and other parts of the form were simplified as well.

TAKING NOTICE

By volume, scrap exporters in North America send more containers to China than to India, making any changes to Chinese procedures especially important.

At the ISRI 2010 Convention & Exposition, held in San Diego in early May, representatives from the Chinese metals industry offered a series of presentations featuring information on that nation’s economy, its metals industry and its regulatory climate.

China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association-Recycling Branch (CMRA) Vice President Ma Hongchang provided attendees with that group’s insight into recent revisions of a Chinese regulation that greatly affects scrap processors in North America.

China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) recently issued Notice No. 119-2009, with changes to documentation required by overseas suppliers of scrap materials to China.

According to Ma, an application form (which will be available online to ISRI members though that organization’s Web site, www.isri.org) is a key document that will be important to those making shipments. Additionally, the agency is requesting certain tax registration documents from all scrap shippers.

Information AQSIQ is requesting includes an “explanation of the company’s organizational structure,” a floor plan of processing sites and documents verifying ISO 9001 or RIOS (Recycling Industry Operating Standard) certification.

Ma said companies who comply with Notice No. 119 must then seek renewal of their Notice No. 119 approval 90 days before their initial approval expires.

The author is editor-in-chief of Recycling Today and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.