The BIR World Council of Recycling Associations would bring together the presidents of the various recycling associations of the world in an initiative that would enable them to “work together to tackle the challenges facing the global trade of recyclables”, explained BIR President Ranjit Baxi.
He also noted that more than 900 people from 57 countries were participating in the BIR Convention in Berlin – “a great result” given that “our industry is currently going through one of the most testing times we have ever experienced” in terms of the pressure on demand and margins. He went on to announce that BIR was targeting October 2017 for its first-ever Convention in India, describing the country as “an extremely important and growing market for our business”.
Mr Baxi expressed the hope that BIR efforts to launch a Global Recycling Day would also come to fruition in 2017; this event would be designed to celebrate the importance of recycling and to promote the major environmental contribution of the recycling industry.
Immediately following the Annual General Assembly in Berlin, the Convention’s Keynote Speaker Klaus Töpfer underlined the progress of the last 30 years towards making the closing of material cycles “a business case” rather than an environmental issue. A former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Mr Töpfer identified a shift towards “a sharing economy” in which companies would start to insist that products were returned to them at end-of-life.
The guest speaker said that recycling represented “a huge pre-condition” for furthering the pro-climate agenda and that the “stigma” must be removed from recycled products.
