July/August 2015 While some participants at the BIR spring conference in Dubai focused on finding “the next China,” others sought opportunities beyond that beguiling mirage.
By Adam Minter
The Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling returned for its spring convention to the cosmopolitan oasis of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. While the mood at the May 18–20 meeting was far from buoyant, with markets for most scrap commodities slipping or stagnant, many of the conferees expressed pragmatism and patience.
The scrap industry has seen far worse markets in recent memory, attendees said, and no one was predicting a crash. Instead, the speakers focused on predicting which developing country or region might become “the next China,” taking up the demand that has disappeared from the markets with China’s slowing economy. No consensus was reached, but the strong presence of Indian scrap traders—traditional trading partners of the Middle East’s traders—seemed promising. The ongoing globalization of the scrap industry would thus appear unhindered but for the ever-looming threat of new regulations.
Over the last decade, one of the scrap industry’s most prominent and eloquent defenders of globalization has been Ranjit Baxi, chairman and CEO of recovered-fiber exporter J&H Sales International (London). Baxi has served as BIR’s treasurer since 2011 and as president of its Paper Division from 2007 to 2013. At this meeting, he was elected unanimously to serve a two-year term as BIR’s new president.
Baxi vowed to change the scrap industry’s poor environmental image, which persists, he said, despite the obvious environmental benefits inherent in recycling.
Ferrous Pins Long-Term Prospects on Global Development
The first half of 2015 was bleak for the ferrous scrap sector, acknowledged William Schmiedel, president of Sims Group Global Trade Corp. (New York) and president of the BIR Ferrous Division. A continued collapse in iron ore prices, which began in 2014, combined with a flood of Chinese steel exports, has created near-term gloom.
Schmiedel’s brief market report focused intently on Chinese exports of finished and semifinished steel, which exceeded 8.5 million mt in April—a 15-percent increase over March. European and U.S. steel companies have asked their respective governments for additional tariffs to protect their domestic industries. “How these and other worldwide cases proceed will have a major impact on the world [electric-arc furnace] sector we all serve,” he said.
George Adams, CEO of SA Recycling (Orange, Calif.), pointed out that ferrous scrap prices were up for May shipments, despite a “less-than-positive” outlook for steel sales. He noted “a common lament” among U.S. scrap processors is the shortage of scrap despite the arrival of spring.
Edwin Basson, director general of the World Steel Association (Brussels), offered his organization’s perspective for the first time from the BIR stage. China, he said, has come to the end of the rapid growth phase of its steel consumption and production, with obvious impacts on iron ore. Scrap will likely increase as a steelmaking raw material, both as an organic outgrowth of China’s economic development and as a result of that country’s push for low-energy solutions to its polluting, inefficient, high-energy economy. The Chinese ferrous scrap cycle, according to Basson, is 20 to 30 years, compared with 43 in the United States and 47 in the EU. That should help boost China’s EAF development, he added.
Basson predicted that overall steel demand will remain strong, with expected 0.5-percent growth in 2015, to 1.54 billion mt, and 1.4-percent growth in 2016, to 1.56 billion mt. China is in the process of becoming a stable, mature market, he explained, and the world is waiting for a new candidate to take up its slackened demand. India and other countries in Southeast Asia have shown signs of taking up the mantle, but he expects “patchy growth” from both over the next few years. The Middle East, despite showing strong growth recently, is simply not large enough to drive markets, he said, and Africa’s demand “is too far in the future.” In Basson’s view, the “major megatrend is what happens to major patterns of urbanization over the next few years.” Steel use, he reminded the audience, is strongly correlated to urbanization.
Overall, Basson expects global demand for scrap and direct-reduced iron to grow and demand for iron ore to stagnate. He predicted that the global EAF share of steel production will grow from 27 percent in 2014 to 30 percent in 2019. The rate is slow, he explained, simply because steel demand is happening in developing markets where scrap and electricity are in short supply.
Nonferrous Looks at Indian Demand
China—traditionally the strongest export market for U.S. nonferrous—continues to show demand weakness, according to speakers at the Non-Ferrous Division meeting. In written comments, Shen Dong of OmniSource Corp. (Fort Wayne, Ind.) offered up a bleak picture of “tight credit policy,” cash-flow issues, and softer demand, which offered little hope that China would lead the way out of current stagnant markets.
Over the medium and long term, India might be able to take up some of the market slack left behind by China’s economic slowdown; the key driver will be its automotive sector, said Mohan Agarwal, managing director of Century Metal Recycling (Haryana, India), India’s largest zinc and aluminum alloys producer. Currently, India is the world’s seventh-largest automobile producer, and “it’s expected to become the world’s third-largest auto producer by 2020, with 7 million units annually,” he said. The shift is happening quickly: In the 2013–2014 period, India exported more small cars to the world (1.26 million) than auto-exporting powerhouse Japan (1.03 million).
Auto manufacturing in India has several advantages, including production costs that are “10 times cheaper” than the United States or European Union and a strong component industry that will be key to boosting India’s aluminum scrap industry, Agarwal said.
The aluminum alloy industry is concentrated in and around India’s automotive hubs, including Gujarat state, but it is “fragmented and disorganized,” he said. The industry consumes more than 500,000 mt of recycled cast aluminum annually, of which 400,000 mt is sourced domestically. Despite the imbalance, Agarwal said the industry is “highly dependent” on imported scrap, especially for quality feed.
The Indian nonferrous market still has several serious issues to deal with, Agarwal said. “Scrap prices don’t tend to follow the LME trend very closely,” for example. As a result, there’s very little price transparency, and India is “in need of a price discovery mechanism.” Even more problematic is the 2.5-percent duty on metal scrap imports. “India is the only country in the Southeast Asian region to impose a duty on scrap,” he asserted. Finally, there is the longstanding problem of India’s logistics costs, which are “seven times greater than the global benchmark.”
But the biggest near-term threat comes from regulations on the pre-inspection of scrap shipments issued this spring by India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade (New Delhi). Those regulations were the primary topic of discussion during the International Trade Council meeting, and—in Agarwal’s estimation—they have the potential to permanently damage India’s nonferrous scrap sector.
Meanwhile, North American markets remained relatively flat in the spring, with a few hints of a demand uptick, especially in copper and mixed heavy metals, reported Andy Wahl of TAV Holdings (Atlanta). Nonetheless, “volumes all around are still limited,” he said, making pricing a secondary concern to actually finding the scrap.
Division members elected David Chiao, vice president of Uni-All Group (Atlanta), to a three-year term as president and Dhawal Shah, managing director of Metco Marketing (Mumbai, India), to senior vice president.
Stainless Hopes Rest on New Products
Falling stainless steel prices are posing near-term challenges, and end-user prices are at “record lows.” But there’s reason to believe “we are very near a bottom,” according to Markus Moll, managing director and senior market analyst with Steel & Metals Market Research (Pflach/Reutte, Austria).
What will bring prices back up? In a word, China, which currently produces about 53 percent of the world’s stainless steel and consumes 48 percent, Moll pointed out. Those numbers will almost certainly grow, he said. Today, China’s stainless consumption is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 15 percent, compared with a 5-percent rate for the rest of the world.
And don’t discount markets beyond China. “Stainless is winning new applications every day,” Moll said. “Nothing matches stainless steel” for sustained, long-term growth.
Moll highlighted several sectors he believes will spur this long-term growth. Infrastructure has a particularly bright future; with a nod to his desert host, he highlighted desalination plants as a particularly strong market for stainless. Likewise, he views the automotive and heavy transportation sector—which currently consumes 10 percent of stainless produced—as a growth opportunity due to the proliferation of “hot, energy-efficient engines” that require alloys.
Meanwhile, consumer goods remain a powerful market, though a rapidly evolving one, Moll noted. Despite the current shift away from stainless for kitchen counters and sinks, stainless’s future in kitchens isn’t totally bleak. “The high-quality cookware segment is booming, as bakeries close and supermarkets pick up the business,” he said.
Moll expects that the recent European anti-dumping case against Chinese and Taiwanese stainless imports will not have a significant long-term impact. “In the long run, imports will return to or exceed pre-anti-dumping levels, even without China and Taiwan,” he explained. Companies like Posco (Pohang, South Korea) or Jindal (West Bengal, India) will take up the market slack in fairly short order, he predicted.
Moll was gloomier when assessing the U.S. stainless market, which he believes will have slow to no growth through 2016 due to a strong dollar and low oil prices. The latter factor, he warned, will negatively affect the oil and gas industry’s consumption of stainless. On the other hand, lower oil prices also spur consumption, and—Moll was pleased to note—“Americans are buying big cars again.”
Currently, Chinese mills are highly dependent upon nickel pig iron, with scrap providing only about 22 percent of their charge, according to Moll. But the mills are keen to diversify into more scrap, and a stronger yuan and growing domestic scrap supplies should help. “The average life of a stainless steel product in the West is 20 years,” Moll explained. “In China, it’s shorter. The average life of a washing machine is just eight years.” That turnover is going to push mills away from nickel pig iron to higher scrap ratios.
Moll offered one caution that held back his long-term bullishness. At the moment, he claimed, China’s annual per capita consumption of stainless steel is more than twice that of the United States. “China will be saturated by 2020,” he said, and that could exert downward pressure on the markets.
E-Scrap Follows Gadget Trends
The only thing guaranteed about global e-scrap markets is that they will continue to evolve as quickly as the gadgets that drive them. That, at least, was the impression left by E-Scrap Committee speakers.
In mainland China, the e-scrap plastics market is largely confined to materials recovered from cathode-ray-tube cases, reported Steve Wong of Fukutomi Co. (Hong Kong). The cost of processing “the rest” is too high, especially in today’s weak plastics markets.
Nonetheless, Wong did note that the recycling of plastic scrap from electronics has been “automated” to a great extent, including via the use of near-infrared technology to separate ABS from PS. “Separation by manual burning and sorting piece by piece [is] a scene of the past,” he said.
About 75 percent of the e-scrap the U.S. recycling industry processes is sourced from the “commercial and business sector,” according to John Shegerian, chairman and CEO of Electronic Recyclers International (Fresno, Calif.). In a prepared statement read at the meeting, he cited CRT management and recycling as the biggest single short-term issue facing the U.S. electronics recycling industry. The increasing number of abandoned warehouses containing large volumes of CRTs is a particularly menacing problem, Shegerian reported.
The affluent Middle East generates roughly 3 million mt of e-scrap annually, noted Fares Al-Mutairi of Al-Qaryan Group (Dammam, Saudi Arabia). Most countries in the region are considering various options for recycling, but so far only Qatar has “advanced systems” for proper e-scrap recycling, he said.
Guest speaker Klaus Hieronymi of Hewlett-Packard (Bad Homburg, Germany) offered a forward-looking assessment for e-scrap. The raw material mix is changing rapidly, he pointed out. The use of precious and rare metals (such as copper) is declining, while the use of “new plastics”—such as those containing carbon fiber—is increasing. “Ten years from now, the ‘new plastics’ will be the major plastics,” he told the attendees.
Hieronymi noted that, during the boom years of the PC, desktop computers and their monitors weighed an average of 35 kg, of which 10–15 kg was metals. Today’s phones and tablets weigh considerably less, with a much smaller proportion of metals and other valuable, recyclable materials. Yet, there are far more of these devices, and they continue to proliferate, forcing recyclers to think about how to concentrate their collections. Even product sectors that will last—such as laptops—will shift away from using metal to new plastics (such as for laptop cases), he said.
Looking further ahead, Hieronymi predicted fiber optics would replace copper in devices and thereby eliminate the need for gold-plated contacts. That’s bad news for recyclers who cannot adapt and become more efficient, but he estimated they have about a decade to prepare: “These changes will only start hitting the recycling market after 2025,” he said.
Paper Pressures Include Quality
Companies in the recovered paper industry continue to face “extreme economic pressures,” said Reinhold Schmidt, managing partner of Recycling Karla Schmidt (Haren, Germany), who was re-elected president of the Paper Division at its meeting in Dubai. Structural changes within the industry are producing volume and quality losses, Schmidt said, and he questioned whether compliance with quality guidelines will increase or decrease with new and revised standards such as the European List of Standard Grades of Recovered Paper, EN643.
In his report on China, Ranjit Baxi of J&H Sales International added to the list of challenges facing the industry: The rising importance of quality, increasing regulatory controls that are making exports more difficult, currency fluctuations, increasing Chinese domestic collections, and fluctuating demand in China are key issues confronting recovered paper and fiber exporters. Making matters more complicated, the shipping lines were looking to raise freight rates again in May, he reported.
Baxi estimated 50 paper mills have closed in China’s Guangdong region—which once consumed 4 million tons of recovered fiber annually—due in part to tighter environmental controls. At the same time, domestic collections in China are expanding to about 50 million tons a year, increasing the local supply of low-quality material. As China generates more fiber domestically, it has reduced its import demand. Total Chinese recovered fiber imports fell to less than 27.4 million tons in 2014—a drop of more than 4 million tons from 2013 and the lowest level since 2011, Baxi reported. For the first quarter of 2015, the total volume of Chinese recovered paper imports dropped to 6.4 million tons—the lowest first-quarter level in four years. Total Chinese imports will decline again for all of 2015, Baxi projected, even if Europe’s share of the Chinese import market—and imports from Spain in particular—may improve.
Competition is tough among European paper recyclers, according to Merja Helander, fiber recycling business director of Lassila & Tikanoja (Helsinki), who is retiring as president of the European Recovered Paper Association (Brussels). Moderating growth in European collection volumes, low levels of investment interest, and modest profit margins are all contributing to the challenging market conditions, she said. Most of the regional European paper market reports indicated mixed conditions: Dominique Maguin, chairman and CEO of La Compagnie des Matières Premières (Paris), said mill closures in Europe were affecting demand in southern Europe. On the other hand, Paper Division Vice President Jaroslav Dobes of Remat (Brno, Czech Republic) reported collections in the Czech Republic registered their largest annual volume increase in 2014, rising 12 percent for the year.
Countries within the Gulf Coopera-tion Council and Middle East will continue to be net importers of paper and board due to regional limitations and regulatory challenges, reported Atul Kaul, pulp and paper director of Waraq Arab Paper Manufacturing Co. (Dammam, Saudi Arabia). While containerboard demand within the GCC is gradually improving, and there is a huge need for packaging, Kaul said recovered paper collection and availability in the region are falling short of demand, adding to pressure on prices. Kaul stressed that countries need to improve collections and separation of office waste, as well as to increase public education and participation, in order to address the visible shortage of recovered paper supply. He also asserted that the “free export” of recovered fiber poses a threat to the GCC’s paper industry, a threat that government legislation can mitigate. In response to a question about the negative impacts of trade restrictions, Kaul maintained that the free flow of paper from these countries would bankrupt the local paper industries if GCC countries permitted it.
The Paper Division presented Habiba Al Marashi, chairperson of the Emirates Environmental Group (Dubai), with the BIR Papyrus Prize in recognition of her efforts to promote recycling and sustainability within Dubai and the UAE. Al Marashi said she is driven by sustainable development and has always considered the minimization of waste and recycling to be the most effective options to achieve that goal. She described EEG efforts to improve recycling across a range of goods in the region, including paper, cans, plastics, glass, batteries, and phones. The UAE has set several recycling performance targets and is studying international best practices to achieve the goals in the country’s Vision 2021 initiative, she said.
Plastics Scrap Seeks Room to Grow
“Quiet and dull” is how Plastics Committee President Surendra Borad, chairman of Gemini Corp. (Ghent, Belgium), described the Indian scrap plastics markets, but his assessment could well have stood for the global market as well.
Even China, typically a growth market, is quiet, according to Steve Wong of Fukutomi Co. and the China Scrap Plastics Association (Beijing). A drop-off in imports—partly driven by greater enforcement of environmental and trade regulations, a stronger U.S. dollar, and higher processing costs—has slowed the entire industry. And it might slow further, Wong said, citing Chinese officials who told him to expect increased enforcement of import rules in the coming months.
Not all the news was bleak for plastics, however. Wong noted that Chinese import duties on scrap will fall this year, in keeping with China’s WTO ascension agreement, which would boost prospects for imports. He also noted recent high LDPE prices, which indicate a recovering economy.
In the Middle East, there is as yet very little hard data on scrap plastics generation or consumption for the nascent, but rapidly growing, plastics recycling sector, according to Mahmoud Al Sharif Jr., purchase officer at Sharif Metals Group (Dubai). The UAE is recycling between 40,000 and 50,000 mt of plastics a year, he estimated, and Saudi Arabia might be recycling as much as 100,000 mt. Both countries are encouraging the development of large-scale plastics recyclers, and Saudi Arabia aims to be a top-10 exporter of the material, he said. End-of-life plastics are an “important environmental challenge” for the Middle East, with some wide-ranging implications, he said. For example, UAE ranchers report that camels have a tendency to swallow loose plastic bags, noted Sharif Metals President Salam Al Sharif, speaking from the audience.
The UAE’s plastics recycling sector is plagued by limited supply, strong demand for postindustrial materials, and a lack of material recovery facilities, said Katharina Goeschl, former general manager of Emirates Environmental Technology (Dubai). UAE policymakers are considering restricting plastics scrap exports, she said. At the moment, imports are prohibited.
A Bounce in Rubber, a Spike in Tires
Of the sectors presenting at BIR, the most optimistic outlook was at the Tyres & Rubber Committee. In part, this optimism reflected the low reclamation rates and huge unfulfilled opportunity that the sector offers in many parts of the world.
Committee Chairman Ruud Burlet, managing director of Rubber Resources (Masstricht, Netherlands), said he expects a spike in rubber prices in the near term. Not all is well in the Netherlands, however: Low commodity prices seriously threaten retreading operations, as does the intense competitive pressure from cheap imported Chinese tires, he said. Currently, Chinese companies consume approximately 37 percent of the annual global natural rubber supply, according to Burlet’s data.
Jacinto Alcazar Padilla, managing director of Ecija Rubber Solutions (Colombo, Brazil), revealed detailed data on Brazil: The country produced 1 million mt of tires in 2013 while importing 341,000 mt. The country recycled 521,000 mt of tires at 834 collection points nationwide. Of these, almost 70 percent went to cement kilns, 11.7 percent to artificial turf infill, and 10.6 percent to rubber goods in general.
In the United States, tire recyclers have had to start charging tipping fees due to variable supply, pricing, and excessive wear and tear tires impose on shredding machines and other expensive equipment, explained Jeff Kendall, retired CEO of Liberty Tire Recycling (Pittsburgh). He expressed some concern that the smuggling of U.S. tires into China, via Vietnam, to make carbon black was diverting supply from the United States.
Textiles Remain Soft
Textile graders and exporters worldwide are suffering from softer export markets, especially in Africa. The strong U.S. dollar has made it increasingly difficult for U.S. textile exporters to remain competitive in overseas markets, explained Eric Stubin, president of Trans-Americas Textile Recycling (Clifton, N.J.). Higher business costs, including government-mandated wage and benefit packages, are hurting the industry’s margins at a very difficult time.
In his submitted comments, Osamu Shoji of Shoji & Co. (Osaka, Japan) also described stagnant markets. But the reason he cited for the drop-off in scrap textile volumes in Japan is different from other countries: People are selling their good clothes to vintage shops, he reported.
Alan Wheeler, director of the Textile Recycling Association (Maidstone, England), objected to “articles published recently claiming that the used-clothing industry is ‘hidden’ and that it is largely responsible for the demise of textile production in some parts of Africa.” The demise of international agreements restricting Chinese textile exports to the West have had a more profound effect on Africa’s competitiveness, he asserted. He called on the industry to challenge this and other negative publicity and fight African countries’ proposed bans on used-clothing imports.
Worldwide, about 30 billion kg of clothing is discarded annually, estimated Nohar Nath, executive director of the Kishco Group (Mumbai). Over the last 15 years, parts of developing Asia have joined the affluent West in sorting and grading the material. Today, grading and sorting is done in about 15 Asian countries by approximately 500 “units,” as Nath characterized them. Charities, which tried to control the business in Asia, are now tied to collection companies, which pay royalties to them. Grading and sorting is a labor-intensive process that used to be done primarily in high-wage countries but has migrated to Asia, primarily for labor cost savings, Nath said. Asia and Africa also now consume 90 percent of the products textile recyclers produce, he said.
Adam Minter is a freelance writer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and author of Junkyard Planet. ReMA Chief Economist and Director of Commodities Joe Pickard contributed to this article.
ITC Takes on Surprise From Indian Regulators
The International Trade Council agenda was upended when—the evening before the meeting—India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade issued a much-anticipated revision to its regulations on pre-inspection of scrap shipments to India. Interest in the regulation ran high due to the surprise April announcement of a regulation that—among other onerous changes—required shippers to provide video evidence of a pre-inspection officer observing the loading of India-bound containers. During the subsequent weeks, the Metal Recycling Association of India (Mumbai) lobbied the Indian government heavily for changes to the rule.
Longtime MRAI President Ikbal Nathani, managing director of the Nathani Group of Cos. (Mumbai), who communicated directly with DGFT throughout the process, noted that the agency’s reasons for the new regulation were sound: In 2004, explosives hidden in scrap caused a fatal explosion at a steel mill, spurring the government to develop a pre-inspection system akin to the one China’s AQSIQ (Beijing) operates. In recent years, however, that pre-inspection system has had serious problems. For example, when DGFT went looking for authorized inspection companies in various countries, they “found that many inspection companies didn’t exist,” but were actually elaborate frauds, he said. That these frauds were occurring at a time of increasing terrorism was reason for concern. According to Nathani, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs’ stance was, “Never mind if the scrap doesn’t come. Safety and security [are] most important.”
After intense lobbying, DGFT agreed to allow photographs of container loading in lieu of video so long as the photos included images “of the loading, of the container ceiling, of the inspector present at the loading,” and others that would help document that the inspection was not a fraud. The new procedures were to go into effect July 1.
ISRI President Robin Wiener joined others in requesting that DGFT exempt shredded scrap, and Nathani assured the audience that MRAI is trying to obtain that exemption. Nonetheless, he warned that “DGFT is hell-bent on this procedure.”
Addressing a separate trade concern, Wiener announced that ReMA had just completed an analysis of thefts from shipping containers and ports where such thefts are more prevalent. She said the organization would like to find new ways to get the information out to members and would be willing to collaborate with other organizations to do so.
BIR Environmental and Technical Director Ross Bartley wrapped up the ITC session with a presentation on emerging barriers to the free and fair trade of scrap materials between countries. He presented a recent OECD survey of governments that have imposed such restrictions; when asked to justify the restrictions, 40 percent of the governments said that the restrictions were unjustified—in other words, the governments gave no reasons for them. Among the remaining 60 percent, 38 percent cited a desire to protect domestic industries. Only 2 percent cited environmental protection. The OECD researchers believed such restrictions were ineffective at accomplishing their goals in nearly every case, Bartley reported.
Shredders Face an Overcapacity Problem
BIR Environmental and Technical Director Ross Bartley updated the Shredder Committee on the ever-changing shredder population in the United States (an estimated 288 machines) and the European Union (338). These numbers are likely high, however, the meeting participants largely agreed. George Adams, CEO of SA Recycling (Orange, Calif.), noted that many U.S. shredders had been mothballed or shut down due to the lack of scrap volume and significant shredder overcapacity in recent years. A similar dynamic exists in Europe, according to Manuel Burnand of Coframetal (Paris).
Salam Al Sharif, president of Sharif Metals (Dubai), suggested that overcapacity might also be affecting the Middle East’s growing shredder population. The region is now home to 12 shredders of 2,500–3,500 hp and 18 of greater horsepower, he reported. This is an increase from the five or six shredders in the region just six years ago. “The growth is driven by the construction industry,” he explained.
Adams offered a short but pointed presentation on the growing number of shredder-pile fires occurring in North America. “During the first 20 years of operating our shredders, we never had issues with fires,” he said. “But that’s changed because there are batteries in everything these days—especially lithium batteries.” The only way to avoid fires, he suggested, is to “avoid piles.” At SA, a 250-ton pile is shredded. “A 1,000-ton pile, you can’t put out [a fire]. No amount of water will put it out. Keep smaller piles.”
IEC Assesses Regulatory Climate
The slow and inexorable creep of regulation was the singular focus of the International Environment Council meeting. IEC Chairman Olivier François of Galloometal (Menen, Belgium) decried an OECD proposal that would require chemical analysis of “waste” shipments, including scrap. “It would be impossible to do this,” he noted, pointing to gaps in knowledge about eco-toxicity, as well as the practical problems involved in chemically characterizing highly variable materials. Other IEC members representing a range of commodities echoed François’ objections.
BIR’s Ross Bartley offered a firsthand account of the “lively” discussions in Geneva at the Conferences of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions. At issue was the categorization of used products as waste. “Most people, when they look at used electronics, they know they are not waste,” Bartley said. But at the COPs, the distinction was heavily debated and will require further clarification in the future. For now, a newly forged compromise allows any country that wants to prohibit imports of used electronics to do so. “It’s an interim guideline,” Bartley noted, “and not legally binding.”
Bartley also took up a recent report on “waste crimes” by the United Nations Environment Programme (Geneva), in which the agency asserts that as much as 90 percent of global “e-waste” is processed improperly. The report has received considerable criticism from across the global scrap industry, including from Bartley, who questioned its methodology for measuring allegedly illegal shipments of scrap. “Just because you can’t measure it doesn’t mean it’s illegal,” he said, referring to the methods for recycling or reusing e-scrap outside of formalized, developed-world facilities.