May/June 2000
By Si Wakesberg
Si Wakesberg is New York bureau chief for Scrap.
After writing market reports for years listing prices c.i.f. or f.o.b. Rotterdam, I finally got the chance last December to stand at that very port in the Netherlands. As I gazed at the water, I thought of the thousands of vessels that had carried millions of tons of scrap through this, the largest port in Europe. It was a satisfying moment.
My trip to the Netherlands also gave me the chance to spend two afternoons with a remarkable figure in the Dutch scrap industry—Alfred Arnold “Fred” Nijkerk.
I had previously known Fred through correspondence and encounters at ReMA conventions and Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) congresses. But those were hasty meetings in which we only had time to say, “Hello, how are you?”
Talking with Fred over lunch at the Kurhaus in The Hague—the Netherlands’ capital and his home city—was another matter.
Over such a lunch, Fred—a slender man approaching 70, though he has the energy of a younger man—taught me volumes about the Netherlands, including its industry, art (and what glorious art it is), and music. He’s also well-versed in history, possessing a remarkable memory for historic events and dates. And he’s quite a linguist, speaking not only his native Dutch, but also English, German, and French.
As we spoke, I learned that the name Nijkerk means “new church.” According to Fred, his ancestors assumed that name more than 300 years ago, adopting the name of the village in which they lived.
As it turns out, Fred wasn’t born in the Netherlands. Instead, his birthplace lies just south in Belgium in a town named Schaerbeek, a suburb of Brussels. He studied law at Leiden University and received a doctorate in 1954. But instead of pursuing a career as an attorney, Fred ended up in the scrap recycling business—not surprising given that his family owned B.J. Nijkerk N.V., the biggest scrap company in the Netherlands (and, according to Fred, the oldest in the world as it dates from March 1823).
Though Fred carried a famous name in the Dutch scrap industry, he made his own way up the recycling ladder. He joined his family’s scrap business in 1956 at 26 after being discharged as a first lieutenant from his obligatory two-year military service. Next, he worked his way up to general manager of Frank Rijsdijk-Holland, the biggest Dutch shipbreaking company. In 1971, he joined Billiton International Metals Group, which was then a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. As president of its metals recycling division, Fred became widely known throughout the European metals trade.
In 1982, he left Billiton to launch several ventures of his own, including a metal trading firm, a recycling industry consultancy, and an editing services company. While that last firm might seem out of place, it was a continuation of Fred’s journalistic activities that began in 1966 when he founded and served as editor-in-chief of Magazine Recycling Benelux. Even after retiring from that editorial position after 27 years, he continued to write for the magazine, as well as others such as Recycling International (for which he writes the scrap market report). Along the way, he somehow found time to write the Handbook of Recycling Techniques, which has sold more than 5,000 copies in 64 countries. The latest (fourth) edition includes contributions from coauthor Wijnand Dalmijn of Delft Technical University.
Throughout his career, Fred was a dedicated volunteer leader in several European scrap industry trade associations. From 1987 to 1993, for instance, he served as vice president, then president of the Dutch Recycling Federation. He was also president of the Dutch Metals Recycling Federation—a member organization of the Dutch Recycling Federation—for an amazing 25 years.
Further, he was a vice president of both the ferrous division and the shredder operators committee of BIR, which seems fitting since his family founded that association. The story goes back to 1948 when Fred was just a teenager. That year, he attended a party celebrating the 125th anniversary of his family’s scrap company at the Amstel Hotel in Amsterdam. At that party, his uncle and father suggested establishing an international scrap industry association. The result was BIR.
Once you get Fred on the topic of scrap, you may be overwhelmed by the encyclopedic database he carries in his head on such matters as ferrous and nonferrous supply and demand, the role equipment plays in the recycling of materials, and the people he has met over the years.
For example, he remembers James T. Flannery, the first American to become president of BIR. Few people today would recall Flannery, who once also headed the National Association of Recycling Industries, an ReMA predecessor. Fred not only remembers him, but also speaks of him with affection. “I’ve been around for a long time,” he admits.
As for data, Fred can easily rattle off statistics, especially those about the Dutch scrap industry. He’s quick to boast about the Netherlands’ impressive recycling activity. “It’s the most densely populated country in Europe—383 inhabitants per square kilometer versus 29 in the United States,” he says, “and its recovery rate for recyclables is very high.” The Dutch, he notes, have the highest overall collection level in the European Union, with metal recovery at approximately 80 percent, paper recovery about 60 percent, and glass and demolition scrap recovery more than 80 percent.
All talk about recycling ended abruptly, however, when the subject of music came up. Not surprisingly, Fred—an aficionado of classical music—was as articulate about Beethoven and Mahler as scrap recycling.
“Have you ever heard of the Residential Orchestra of The Hague?” he asked. When I admitted that I hadn’t, he replied, “Then I’ll not only tell you about it but take you there and show you its quarters.”
En route, he noted that he had just stepped down as chairman of the Friends of the Orchestra of The Hague, a position he’d held for 13 years. And true to his promise, he indeed took me on a tour of the orchestra’s headquarters and 1,900-seat concert hall. Not only that, he gave me a CD of one of the orchestra’s recent recordings.
Fred’s interests aren’t limited to scrap and music, of course. He’s also a sports enthusiast. This former president of the Dutch Squash Association from 1982 to 1990 is also an avid golfer (despite one hip-replacement surgery) who can talk about the game as intensely as he talks about recycling.
My afternoons with Fred certainly revealed how he has contributed immeasurably to the advancement of the Dutch scrap industry in his decades-long career.
More important, I got to know the whole man—the scrap industry expert and journalist; the metals lecturer at Delft Technical University and other colleges in the Netherlands, Belgium, and England; the man who, in 1991, was made a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands; the man who can discuss Mahler’s symphonies, the paintings of Rembrandt and Vermeer, and squash and golf, all with equal passion and intelligence.
It was a pleasure finally to meet the real Fred Nijkerk.•
After writing market reports for years listing prices c.i.f. or f.o.b. Rotterdam, I finally got the chance last December to stand at that very port in the Netherlands. As I gazed at the water, I thought of the thousands of vessels that had carried millions of tons of scrap through this, the largest port in Europe. It was a satisfying moment.