Navigating through complicated times

Recyclers around the world, particularly in Europe, find themselves surrounded by sustainability-linked opportunities on one side and threats tied to the misconception that they deal in “waste” on the other.

Research into the energy-, resource- and emissions-savings benefits of recycling paints a clearer picture that both the environment and regional economies benefit when discarded materials are reprocessed into something new.

But for some environmental advocates, that picture is less clear when it comes to plastic. Some of those same recycling skeptics also oppose recycling loops with longer supply chains.

In Brussels and within the United Nations, skeptics seem poised to score several victories that have been met with counter-skepticism by those who invest in recycling.

Specifics and generalities

The last several years have seen groups like the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) and European Recycling Industries’ Confederation (EuRIC), both based in Brussels, fending off unwelcome policies while defending recycling’s reputation.

At the most recent BIR convention in October in the United Arab Emirates, the organization’s Trade and Environment Director Alev Somer sounded the alarm on the sector’s need to have a bigger say when extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems are formulated.

EPR systems are intended to ensure manufacturers and brand owners pay part of the tab when hard-to-recycle items reach end of life. EPR often has been proposed for electronics but increasingly is being applied to packaging.

For cardboard or used beverage can recyclers, these systems seem wildly unnecessary considering they already invest heavily in collection.

But when recyclers are not at the table, Somer said established secondary commodities can be labeled “waste,” a dispiriting misnomer to many in the metals and containerboard supply chains.

Somer told BIR attendees there were about 30 such EPR systems globally in the early 1990s, but that figure has grown to about 400 today. She said EPR was now on the agenda at the UN, the EU and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

“This is happening with or without us,” Somer said. “One of the main concerns is that recyclers are not sitting at the [global] table when they are discussing EPR. We are absent; we are invisible.”

Unfortunately for recycling organizations around the world, defending the reputation of recycling has become a job for full-time staff members.

The BIR published reports on the environmental benefits of recycling in 2008 and 2016 with an emphasis on metals. In a report to be authored this year and next, the scope will be broadened to include all commodities BIR represents and will address additional aspects.

“We want to go beyond CO2 emissions and energy savings from recycling,” Somer said. “We are looking at other natural resource savings at a wider level, so we might include water consumption or transport emissions and have some comparisons between secondary and primary production.”

The intention was to give the BIR and its members more data to be in a stronger position when talking at a global level with the UN, EU or OECD. The report is expected to be issued at the BIR convention in Singapore next October.

In addition to EPR policies, European recyclers have been waging a policy battle to keep Europe’s ports open to international scrap trade.

A wider loop is still a loop

Another complication for Europe-based recyclers is maintaining the ability to bring collected materials to the most eager market.

As reported by Recycling Today earlier this year, part of that concern is over a system requiring non-OECD countries to grant permission for scrap shipments sent from EU member countries.

The registration system alone can present barriers to companies that carry out recycling in Europe, but it is far from the only one in the regulatory pipeline.

Another proposed regulation involves reprocessed polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles.

Plastic packaging floating in bodies of water around the world is a touchstone in its demonization. Improperly discarded plastic packaging has helped lead to calls for more EPR systems, for substituting plastic with other materials and for reusable packaging.

In the meantime, however, PET bottle recycling has become more widespread in the past 10 years. Pledges to use more recycled PET (rPET) by brand owners in Europe have caused them to seek a “right of first refusal” system to prevent rPET from going into other applications, such as fabric production.

EuRIC, the European Waste Management Association (FEAD) and Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) say an established market for rPET will continue to direct it to those who require it, whether they make bottles, tote bags or T-shirts. They also claim there is no shortage of rPET on the continent.

“Supposedly, this scarcity is a result of nonbeverage industries, in particular the fiber market, using a significant share of food-contact recycled PET,” the organizations say. “However, since the introduction of the mandatory recycled content target for PET beverage bottles in the [EU] Single Use Plastics Directive, the share of the fiber market has dropped sharply.”

As a sign of plastic recycling’s growth, the organizations say the installed capacity for production of food-grade rPET in the EU last year stood at 1.4 million tons. They estimate the beverage industry in the EU would require 800,000 metric tons to meet the 25 percent mandatory recycled content target in 2025 and about 1 million tons in 2030.

As of late October, the groups say the problem in Europe was not too little rPET but perhaps too much. “The European rPET market is facing a surplus status, with very low demand from the beverage industry, consequently forcing European recycling plants to run well below their capacities,” they say.

Headaches beyond plastic

In the metals sector, one source of regulatory concern focuses on critical and strategic raw materials lists in the EU that could include scrap materials.

In September, EuRIC and the BIR again had to issue a statement of concern, this time about the suggested inclusion of ferrous scrap on a proposed EU strategic raw materials list. The proposal emanated from a European Parliament committee.

“The recent last-minute endorsement for the formation of a secondary list of strategic raw materials, with ferrous scrap quoted as [an] example, raises several questions,” EuRIC says.

The organization continues, “Not only could this be seen as outside the scope of the commission’s proposal, but the inclusion of ferrous scrap without sufficient data sets an alarming precedent for the unrestricted addition of materials to the list, lacking clear conditions or a methodology for assessment.”

For recycling organizations in Europe and their member companies, this recent proposal regarding strategic raw materials appears as another example of creating barriers to profitability when they instead could be investing to help produce low-carbon recycled-content materials the world needs and is demanding.

“Creating a list of secondary strategic raw materials, which will include ferrous scrap, raises concerns, and detracts from the proposal’s purpose,” according to EuRIC. “Let’s prioritize sustainability and climate neutrality in steel production by increasing recycled content.”

The author is senior editor with the Recycling Today Media Group and can be reached at btaylor@gie.net.