‘I’m feeling huge support from the scrap scene’

While the Ukrainian conflict has had profound impact on trade including scrap metal and steel, one participant of the BIR conference in Barcelona had a close personal involvement.

Olga Yakymchuk first attended BIR a decade ago but this year she did so after harrowing experiences fleeing Russian troops and artillery in her native Ukraine.

Yakymchuk is now working as a senior analyst for Davis Index in Leipzig, Germany to where she escaped with her mother in April. She had to leave her husband behind.

Their home is in Dnipro which has been a troubled region since 2014. She told Recycling International that her car journey of 2 000 km to Leipzig, Germany had been very difficult because of the war.

She was welcomed to Barcelona by BIR president Tom Bird who told the media briefing she had the very best wishes of the organisation.

Yakymchuk said she was pleased to be at the convention, ten years after her first visit. ‘Everyone has welcomed me and I am feeling huge support from the scrap scene. It’s been very important.’