March/April 1996
The Netherlands, geographic host of the upcoming BIR convention, has long been an important site for the international trade of recyclables. Here’s a look at why and a glimpse of the country’s equally noteworthy domestic recycling efforts.
By Fred Nijkerk
Fred Nijkerk has been part of the Dutch recycling industry for virtually all of his life. He started off working for his family’s scrap company, B.J. Nijkerk, which was eventually sold—as were virtually all major scrap companies in Holland —to the big integrated Ymuiden Steelworks. He subsequently joined a Dutch Shipbreaking company and then became head of the recycling division of the metal company Billiton. In 1966, he founded Magazine Recycling Benelux, where he acted as chief editor for 27 years. He also served as president of the Dutch Scrap Iron and Steel Association for 25 years and is vice president of the Dutch Federation of Recycling Associations for six years.
Nijkerk recently completed the Handbook Der Recycling Technieken, a 160-page book that takes a comprehensive look at recycling technologies through text as well as 182 photographs, drawings, and graphs. (An English-Language translation is under development and is scheduled to be available at the spring convention of the Bureau of International Recycling.)
Next to the weekly U.S. composite prices for No. 1 steel scrap, quotes for “f.o.b. Rotterdam”—a reference to the largest port city of the Netherlands—are probably the most-used international indicators of ferrous scrap values today.
No wonder: Well more than 3 million tons of ferrous scrap and alloy scrap left the ports of Rotterdam and neighboring Amsterdam in 1994, thus making them the world’s leading transshipment harbors for steel scrap.
These Dutch ports play an important role in the world trade of other scrap commodities as well, particularly nonferrous metals and paper. In fact, about a million tons of paper stock set sail from the Netherlands last year, traveling mostly in containers, but also in bulk.
The Netherlands, therefore, seems an especially appropriate setting for the Bureau of International Recycling’s ( BIR ) upcoming spring convention, set for late May in Amsterdam. (For registration details, “See It for Yourself,” on page 176.)
Just Down the River
Much of the scrap material transshipped through the busy Dutch harbors originates from the industrial Ruhr River area of Germany, which generates huge quantities of surplus steel scrap and is conveniently located along the waterways leading to Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Shipped to the Dutch ports primarily in barges (which frequently arrive in packs of four to six coupled push-barges), this incoming scrap awaiting transshipment can add up. In fact, it is not unusual for these loads to come in at an average pace of 15,000 tons per workday—most of it shredded scrap, but also mixtures of No. 1 and No. 2 as well as simply No. 1 steel scrap.
The proximity of the Dutch ports to Belgium and France also make them appealing to scrap exporters from those countries, who, indeed, make regular use of Rotterdam and other ports for transshipment purposes.
In addition, scrap shippers from these and other neighboring countries are drawn to the sophisticated export facilities established in the Netherlands. European Bulk Services, for instance, which operates the largest export facilities in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, maintains huge bridge cranes, sometimes assisted by floating cranes, that have repeatedly loaded 12,000 to 15,000 tons of scrap per day. The resulting low transshipment fees, ranging between about $3 and $5 per ton, have led to an important "grouping" of British and Danish steel scrap for export through the Netherlands. Because it has been cheaper to send this material through Rotterdam rather than their own seaports, scrap exporters from these nations have shipped loads by coasters to the Dutch ports for subsequent export by bulk carriers.
The bulk of ferrous scrap exported from the Netherlands in 1994 went to Turkey, which took roughly 1.5 million tons of material loaded in Dutch ports. South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, India, and, somewhat surprisingly, Japan were also significant importers of steel scrap shipped from the Netherlands.
As for other scrap commodities, about a million tons of paper stock, shipped by container as well as in bulk, left Rotterdam and other Dutch ports last year, with main destinations of Taiwan, China, Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines. Nonferrous scrap exported through the Netherlands, meanwhile, was primarily sent to China, Taiwan, and South Korea for further sorting or melting.
Of course, the Dutch ports are important not only for transshipments of scrap from other countries but also for exports of scrap generated in the Netherlands. And the entire Dutch waterway system is key to the transport of all scrap from the Netherlands, whether destined for export or domestic consumption.
Virtually all scrap plants of any size lie along the waterfront, allowing the great majority of processed Dutch scrap to be shipped out in barges. (Incoming scrap is frequently received by barge, too.) All 10 of the country's automobile shredders, for example, are situated on the water. This is particularly vital to their operations since their entire output has to be exported because neither of the two Dutch steel mills--the 5-million-ton-per-year integrated Ymuiden Steelworks, which lies at sea, and the minimill Thyssen-Nedstaal, which sits along the Rhine River--take shredded scrap because they consider its copper content too high for their high quality steel products.
Breaking Recycling Records
With more than 450 inhabitants per square kilometer, the Netherlands is the most densely populated country in Europe. (The United States, in contrast, has a population concentration of about 26 people per square kilometer.) Because of this population/space issue, combined with the famed thriftiness of the Dutch, recovery rates for recyclables are very high. In fact, more than 13 million tons of recyclables are collected and processed annually, a total equal to nearly a ton per inhabitant.
The Netherlands boasts the highest recovery rate in the world for rubble, or demolition debris, about 65 percent of which is recycled each year. A key reason for this high rate is simple and practical: There are no mountains in this flat country and, therefore, a lack of new natural building materials. Thus, every old road, viaduct, and building is recycled into new building materials. The very modem headquarters of the nation's Ministry of the Environment, for instance, contains 2,000 tons of recycled rubble.
Glass is also recycled at a lofty rate--76 percent--believed to be the highest in the world after Switzerland 's 78-percent recovery pace. Much of the Dutch success in this area lies in the country's collection system, which is based on large glass collection bins placed throughout the nation, generally near supermarkets and street comers. These bins are ubiquitous, with one for every 750 residents, and on many are designed with sepa-rate compartments for clear, amber, and green glass, thus aiding the color segregation required for making new packaging glass horn from the old cullet.
New technology also seems to be helping Dutch glass recycling. The main company collecting and processing cullet in the Netherlands, Maltha Recycling, has opened a sophisticated glass cullet processing factory where old glass is sorted with the aid of laser beams that direct various pneumatically operated airlocks to separate the three colors of cullet.
The paper recycling industry in the Netherlands also enjoys enviable statistics. Thanks to public collection bins placed by the thousands, the national recovery rate for paper stock is 56 percent. Even more impressive is the fact that the Dutch paper and paperboard mills rely on paper stock to meet 69 percent of their total feedstock needs, the second highest recovered paper consumption rate in Europe. This rate is even higher for newsprint produced in the Netherlands , which is made from more than 75 percent paper stock--a percentage that was thought impossible for many years.
Dutch Recycling Well Organized
These recycling industries, and others, are represented by the Federatie Herwinning Grondstoffen (FHG), a federation of nine national associations that each specialize in a particular commodity or type of operation: iron and steel, nonferrous metals, shredder operators, car dismantlers, paper stock, textiles, plastics, glass, and rubber tires. The FHG hasn't always had such a broad constituency, of course, having been founded 75 years ago to encompass "only" four commodities. That 1920 joining of forces, however, established a national monthly exchange that continues to be held in Amsterdam.
The BIR also has its roots in Amsterdam and with the Dutch recycling industry. The international recycling group was founded in Amsterdam in 1948 during a reception celebrating the 125th anniversary of the scrap company B.J. Nijkerk. Scrap recyclers from the Netherlands, Belgium, and France present decided on the spot to form an international organization--the BIR, now headquartered in Brussels.
The Netherlands, geographic host of the upcoming BIR convention, has long been an important site for the international trade of recyclables. Here’s a look at why and a glimpse of the country’s equally noteworthy domestic recycling efforts.