Politics

| The plastics recycling industry had become “insanely dependent” on China and so its recently-announced import ban has left suppliers in other parts of the world not so much with a cold but rather with “pneumonia”, argued BIR Plastics Committee Chairman Surendra Borad Patawari of Gemini Corporation at its latest meeting, held in New Delhi.

| The Indian government aims to set up scrap-based steel mills in the north and west of the country, it was announced at the BIR World Recycling Convention in New Delhi on October 14 by India’s Minister of Steel, Dr Chaudhary Birender Singh.

| The countdown has started to a new international awareness day taking place on 18 March 2018 which is dedicated to securing the future of the planet through recycling.

| The new Waste-Free Ontario Act sets an ambitious goal of a circular economy that sends zero waste to landfill.

| FEAD President Jean-Marc Boursier delivered a speech at the European Commission Reinventing Plastics, Closing the Circle Conference.

| In the light of the current debates and consultations on the upcoming EU Strategy on Plastics and the revision of the EU waste legislation, European Bioplastics (EUBP), the association for the bioplastics industry in Europe, echoes the call for greater investments in the implementation of separate recycling streams, made by the association of Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) earlier this week.

| ESWET welcomes the Commission’s initiative to create an EU Strategy on Plastics, but claims that in certain cases energy recovery is a better solution due to several recycling constraints.

| The move to a circular economy, one in which materials are kept in the value chain for as long as it makes economic and environmental sense, is expected to take a step forward this autumn as the Prospecting Secondary Raw Materials in the Urban Mine and Mining Wastes (ProSUM) project unveils the first Urban Mine Knowledge Data Platform.

| BIR Director General Arnaud Brunet has addressed an official letter to the World Trade Organisation via the European Commission to request an extension of the deadline for comments in the aforementioned matter so that all stakeholders are given the opportunity to put forward their concerns.

| In a position paper the federation points out that there are severall obstacles to overcome.

| The first draft (D1) of the reference document for best available techniques (BREF) for Waste Incineration (WI) was published on 24th May. On first reading, the Best Available Techniques Associated Emission Levels (BATAELs) proposed in D1 are stricter than the current emission standards for waste-to-energy plants.

| ISWA Stands with the Rest of the World on Climate Change. As Donald Trump pulls the plug on the United States' involvement in the Climate Change Agreement, ISWA President Antonis Mavropoulos makes it very clear that ISWA stands with all the industry and political leaders who have since spoken out against Donald Trump’s dangerous actions. This is an affront to science, our planet and to our future generations.

| Paul Simpson, CEO of CDP, said: “It is regrettable that the US administration has decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but with or without its involvement global efforts to prevent dangerous climate change will continue to drive forward.

| The European Waste and Resource Management Industry Association FEAD is calling on the Conference on sustainable, innovative and socially responsible public procurement being held in Paris on 2 June to demand European Commission guidelines for Member States to ensure proper implementation of the EU Public Procurement Package.