Page 26 from: March 2008
Aluminium
scrap in demand
The aluminium business is boom-
ing – mainly because of strong de-
mand from developing countries, it
was confirmed at the 15th Alumini-
um Recycling Congress in Munich,
Germany. Having stood at 427 000
tonnes in 1995, internationally-trad-
ed volumes of aluminium scrap
reached 2 million tonnes a decade
later, mainly because the USA and
Russia were exporting surpluses
which could not be processed at
home to, notably, Europe and Japan.
Meanwhile, China has become the
largest export market for aluminium
scrap: in 2007, the country imported
1.765 million tonnes, notably from
Europe, the USA and Australia, noted
Michael Lion, Director of Sims Asia
Holding. China’s aluminium process-
ing industry has increased its sec-
ondary aluminium production from
1.3 million tonnes in 2002 to 2.35 mil-
lion tonnes in 2006, with a total of 2.8
million tonnes anticipated for 2008.
Currently, China operates two sec-
ondary aluminium smelters with an
annual capacity of more than 50 000
tonnes each, while more than 100
companies are processing 10 000 to
50 000 tonnes of aluminium scrap per
year. According to targets set out in
the country’s eleventh Five Year
Plan, which runs until 2010, Chinese
companies should produce 4.5 million
tonnes of secondary aluminium.
Dutch sitting
on 130 million
batteries
Dutch households are hoarding
some 130 million spent batteries, ac-
cording to Stibat. The organisation
responsible for the collection and re-
cycling of batteries in the Nether-
lands calculates that each household
is home to 97 batteries which are ei-
ther full, empty or in use within ap-
pliances. Of these, an average of
18 are empty batteries.
Some 83% of spent batteries are
collected in the Netherlands while
the remainder end up in the refuse
stream. Currently, more than 12 000
retail shops are acting as free collec-
tion points: in 2007, these attracted
847 326 kg of batteries or 28.4% of
all batteries collected in the Nether-
lands. Almost every primary school
in the Netherlands takes part in col-
lecting batteries too.
As of September 2008, all retail
shops which sell batteries in the
Netherlands will provide free collec-
tion points and will also take respon-
sibility for delivering the batteries to
Stibat’s recycling centres. More than
10 000 tonnes of batteries were col-
lected by Stibat in 2007.
On average, it takes around ten
years for a new battery to make its
way from a shop into the recycling
stream. www.stibat.nl
Ireland strug-
gling to meet
landfill goals
The waste sector in Ireland has
warned that a call for ‘urgent action’
to help Ireland meet its 2010 land-
fill targets could have come too late.
A discussion paper entitled ‘Hitting
the targets for biodegradable munici-
pal waste: Ten targets for change’
says the outcomes currently being
achieved with biodegradable munici-
pal waste (BMW) are ‘less than satis-
factory’. The National Waste Report
from the country’s Environmental
Protection Agency revealed that, dur-
ing 2006, some 1.4 million tonnes of
BMW was landfilled in Ireland.
Dr Andrew Walsh, Managing Di-
rector of Ireland-based Celtic Com-
posting Systems (CCS), commented:
‘Given that the timeframe to develop
any form of meaningful bio-waste in-
frastructure, whether it is compost-
ing facilities, biogas plants or me-
chanical biological treatment sites,
is three-plus years, we are beyond
urgent. It would seem highly im-
probable that Ireland can now make
up the shortfall by 2010.’
PJ Rudden, Group Business Di-
rector of the RPS Group consultan-
cy, said: ‘I agree with the EPA that
we need to vigorously tackle the di-
version of biodegradable waste from
landfill. As the EPA points out, our
National Biodegradable Waste
Strategy points the recommended
way forward as a combination of bio-
logical and thermal treatment.
As recycling rates in Ireland are
now reaching the best in Europe, av-
eraging from 40% to 50%, and sub-
stantial residual waste remains to
be managed, there is now an in-
escapable requirement for waste to
energy to reduce landfill rates to
20% or less in accordance with
Northern European norms.’
Commenting on the EPA report,
the Irish Green Party’s environment
spokesman John Gormley said: ‘We
need some new thinking to break
some old habits and this report from
the EPA makes a very welcome con-
tribution to finding solutions to ob-
stacles in our path.’
Lehigh plans
two tyre powder
plants
Lehigh Technologies Inc. of Flori-
da, USA, a manufacturer of rubber
powder from scrap tyres, will reach a
decision shortly on the location of
two new plants. The four sites cur-
rently under consideration are in Al-
abama, California, North Carolina
and Tennessee.
The proposed plants will form
part of Lehigh’s bid to triple produc-
tion capacity of its ultra-fine rubber
powder. Each site will employ be-
tween 75 and 100 people in facilities
of approximately 120 000 square
feet. The company already operates
a plant at Tucker, Georgia, USA,
and plans to break ground on its sec-
ond plant in early 2008, with the
third plant to follow shortly there-
after. Once completed, Lehigh will
www.recy cling mag a zin.de
A mag a zine for the recy cling indus try is pub lished in
many coun tries. Although these pub li ca tions main ly
cover news of the domes tic mar kets, many of them also
sig nal inter na tion al trends. Recycling International
rounds-up items from these mag a zines which are of
inter est to the inter na tion al recy cling indus try.
The mag a zines we co-oper ate with in pub lish ing
extracts from their edi to ri al pages are:
• Scrap (USA)
• Recycling Today (USA)
• Recycling mag a zin (Germany)
• Magazine Recycling Benelux (The Netherlands/Belgium)
• Recy cling & Waste World (UK)
• Recykling Poland
R O U N D U P
Magazine Round Up
www.mrb-uit gev ers.nl
www.recy cling wasteworld.co.uk
www.recy cling to day.com
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