Page 39 from: Recycling International November/December issue 2024
39recyclinginternational.com | November/December | 2024
Paul Coyte (New Zealand)
With his brother Chris, Coyte runs Hayes Metals, the
largest producer of brass and bronze ingots in
Australasia with manufacturing and warehousing facilities in
New Zealand and Australia. Nice to know: the business was
founded by Coyte’s great-grandfather who emigrated from
England. The money he made from organising boxing tourna-
ments laid the foundations for the family scrap company.
Three generations on, Coyte’s involvement goes far beyond the
Hayes Metals business. In his role as BIR non-ferrous division
chair he has underlined recyclers’ responsibility: ‘We are the
traders, the processors, the consumers and the manufacturers
that are collectively making the world
a better place. What we receive as raw
material and reuse is contributing to
millions of tonnes of net carbon emis-
sions savings every year and it is some-
thing we should celebrate.’
Latest: Hayes Metals is involved in set-
ting up a polymers recycling division,
Coyte told RI during the BIR show in
Singapore.
Tapio Kuusakoski (Finland)
The e-scrap business director of Kuusakoski is a well-
known figure at conferences and trade shows and
always has company news to share. Scandinavia’s recycling major
has been investing millions in new technology to further improve
scrap quality. ‘It’s our response to the EU Green Deal. With ever-
strict regulation and the growing demand for cleaner materials,
there is no other choice than to take responsibility if you want to
stay in business.’ Latest project to be live by the end of 2024: a
refrigerator recycling facility, located in Hyvinkää in south Finland,
to allow electronics waste to be recycled entirely domestically,
saving 1 500 tonnes of carbon emissions per year logistics alone.
Dotan Kabak (Israel)
The man behind a EUR 7 million fridge and air-con
recycling initiative launched late in 2022 at Sderot in
southern Israel. The facility is seen as a project that Israel had
been waiting for because it lacked a modern infrastructure for
fridge and air-con recycling. With a population over nine million,
some 300 000 fridges and 700 000 air-cons are sold every year.
But when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel in October 2023,
Sderot, which is very close to Gaza, was hit hard. Kabak was
among the 360 000 Israeli reservists called up for duty. He had
no choice other than to temporarily close the facility.
Alex Musembi (Kenya)
Musembi is the co-founder of Africa Collects
Textiles (ACT). The social impact enterprise targets
used textiles and footwear for reuse and recycling in Kenya
and Nigeria. It has established a collection hub of 60 sites with
plans to expand this soon. Musembi reports that people
return over 150 tonnes of used clothes and other textiles per
year. ‘For every kilo collected, 10 shillings goes to charity.’ It
may be a small individual sum but the entrepreneur argues the
paymentw add up. Since ACT’s launch in 2015, it has been
working towards an ambitious goal of ensuring at least 50% of
Kenya’s textile scrap gets recycled. ‘In about three years, we
will be able to collect 1 000 tonnes.’ The efforts of Musembi’s
growing team, which now stands at 200, was spotlighted in a
video series by the UN Environment Programme earlier this
year.
Autumn Barnes (USA)
Barnes is an experienced scrap trader, cur-
rently active at Georgia Pacific Recycling in
New York. She started at Sims Metal in Jersey City in
2001, where she sourced containers of ferrous scrap
from the Caribbean,
North, Central and
South America for
20 years. Barnes
maintains that the
best traders learn
from ‘the good, the
bad and the ugly
times’. She cites the
financial crash of
2008 and the pan-
demic-induced eco-
nomic paralysis in
2020 as great learn-
ing moments.
Barnes is glad to
see more women in
top positions in the
industry, noting that
recycling is no lon-
ger a man’s world.
Bartosz Kubicki (Poland)
The owner of Poland’s Elektrorecykling is always
busy with new projects or solutions to tackle com-
plex materials or to boost business activities. The company
has seen spectacular growth in the past couple of years and
Wind Turbine Recycling is one of the latest business divisions
launched by Kubicki. Elektrorecykling claims to have achieved
a significant breakthrough in the processing of blades from
used or damaged turbines. A facility to process them is on the
way near the Polish-German border.
Felix Heinricy (Germany)
Heinricy is a co-founder of Resourcify, based in
Hamburg, Germany. His company launched a digital
system to help map and track waste. More than 600 recyclers
are currently using the service by which MRFs process around
100 million tonnes of material a year. Big brands like Rolls
Royce, Hornbach and McDonalds have also turned to the sys-
tem in a bid to cut waste. Heinricy is a firm believer that data
is key to unlocking the next level of recycling success. He
raised EUR 14 million in 2023 to grow his business and has his
eyes on a US market launch in 2025.
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Venkatesha Murthy (India/Singapore)
Founder and owner of Vans Chemistry, an e-scrap
business with its headquarters and trading office in
Singapore and a recycling facility in Bangalore, India. Murthy is
among India’s high-level recyclers who continues to be a driver
of ambitious e-scrap projects around the world. A EUR 5 mil-
lion project in Istanbul, Turkey is expected to start production
by 2025. At Bangalore, the entrepreneur is working on a EUR 6
million e-scrap facility to recover 25 000 tonnes of copper and
precious metals per year.
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