Guests from across the U.S. and abroad joined Stadler at the new Centre Park Court premises for guided tours, a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and a celebratory evening event. During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Nick Reid, President of the Chamber of Commerce for Winston-Salem, welcomed Stadler to the community and praised its investment in the region: "Stadler's decision to establish its North American headquarters here in Winston-Salem is a strong vote of confidence in our city, our workforce, and our future. Investments like this create high-quality jobs and reinforce our city's position as a hub for sustainable industry and innovation."

Coordinated by Aalborg University (Denmark), the project brings together 19 partners from 12 countries to develop novel circular value chains that convert non-recyclable plastic waste into highly recyclable and non-persistent packaging materials.

Jointly owned by Tomra (65%) and Plastretur (35%), the facility has the capacity to process 90,000 tonnes of plastic per year, transforming plastic packaging waste into uniform polymer fractions ready for recycling. 

After lengthy negotiations at the Environmental Council Meeting, national governments chose short-term political convenience over scientific integrity, environmental safety, and societal responsibility, by failing to uphold a loophole-free domestic 90% net target - the bare minimum recommended by scientists.

This 20.6 kg difference per person highlights an increase in the stock of devices, either because they are still in use, awaiting disposal, being hoarded at home or lost to informal, unmonitored waste treatment. 

The session of the International Trade Council highlighted the complexities of protecting domestic markets versus maintaining the global flow of essential resources.

Olivier François, Chairman of BIR's International Environment Council (IEC), told attendees on 27 October that free and fair trade had long been a core principle for BIR. But the international situation was changing dramatically quickly. There were members in the recycled plastics industry who advocated that "recycled plastic produced in Europe should stay in Europe and be protected from the import of cheap plastics from abroad." This is particularly true, he added, when EU authorities ban the export of recycled plastics for "environmental" reasons.

Committee Chairman Max Craipeau, Greencore Resources Pte Ltd (Hong Kong, CHN) said it was clear that recycling rubber from tyres and other products is much more complicated than processing metals or plastic.

Speaking at the Paper Division meeting on 28 October, Jun Park, Recovered Paper Trader at VIPA Lausanne SA (CHE), said the new rules, which came into play in early October, "created a lot of uncertainties in the market, resulting in the market price to crash".

According to the results, processing one kilogram of automotive shredder residue with three kilograms of biomass reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than three kilograms of CO₂ equivalents compared to energy recovery through incineration. The findings are relevant for current discussions on upcoming EU legislation on end-of-life vehicles.

At the core of the new Micromat generation is a synchronous reluctance motor of energy efficiency class IE6, operating without rare earth elements. The motor's low winding and bearing losses contribute to durability and reduced energy consumption.

The collaboration was announced during the session of the Electrics, Electronics & EV Batteries Committee at the BIR World Recycling Convention in Bangkok, Thailand on 27 October. Dr Kees Baldé, Senior Scientific Specialist with UNITAR, said BIR would help broaden and deepen UNITAR's data and understanding of how secondary raw materials can be recovered from electrical and electronic products.

Division President, Shane Mellor, Managing Director, Mellor Metals (GBR) set the agenda by asserting "AI is fast becoming a critical tool for recyclers", joking that AI-driven robots would soon "be complaining about the commodity prices".

During the Stainless Steel & Special Alloys Committee meeting on 28 October, chaired by Joost van Kleef of Oryx Stainless BV (NLD), topics included the shift from globalisation to regionalisation, restrictions, tariffs and changing trade flows.

Introducing the Plastics Division plenary session on 27 October, Henk Alssema, divisional President and CEO, INVIPLAST (NLD) set out the continued challenging market for plastics recyclers, across almost every region. But he also gave a message of hope.

The family business achieves this with high-performance technology from Vecoplan: The newly installed VIZ 1700 shredder can be adapted to shred a wide variety of materials. It reacts reliably to foreign materials, needs hardly any maintenance and its innovative drive concept makes it extremely energy-efficient.

The session was opened by divisional President Paul Coyte (Hayes Metals, NZL) who highlighted changing trade flows and the different mechanisms that were impacting on them. "Non-ferrous material flows are a lot like trade winds," he said. "It's really hard to work out the future direction of wind flow if you don't have accurate information. Similarly, in our businesses, without accurate information, it's really hard to spot future trends."

On 27 October, at the event's Opening Session chaired by BIR President Susie Burrage OBE, delegates were assured by keynoter speaker Juan Verde that the sustainability agenda was not under threat. It was being re-labelled and recycling remained critical.

Out of all the packaging waste generated, 40.4% was paper and cardboard, 19.8% was plastic, 18.8% glass, 15.8% wood, 4.9% metal and 0.2% other packaging.

Key findings (as of October 2025):