B I R M O N T E C A R L O By Manfred Beck, Gert-Jan van der Have and Ian Martin
The 2008 Spring Convention of the BIR world recycling organisation was a triumph
on so many levels. In addition to attracting a
record attendance of some 1300 registered del-
egates and 400 accompanying persons, the
event’s centrepiece – a gala dinner in celebration
of BIR’s sixtieth birthday – was a truly dazzling
success that lit up the Monte-Carlo sky.
The convention programme itself featured
27 guest speakers and served to highlight the
BIR celebrates its sixtieth birthday in Monte-Carlo
Recyclers lauded as climate
and environment ‘heroes’
In recent years, the environmental debate has become ever more
carbon-centric. However, the recycling industry’s contribution to reduc-
ing carbon dioxide emissions has not attracted much of the interna-
tional spotlight – until now, that is. At the latest BIR Spring Convention,
staged at the Fairmont Hotel in Monte-Carlo, the enormity of its role
in cutting emissions of damaging greenhouse gases was brought into
sharp focus.
vast contribution of the recycling industry to
the planet’s well-being. Rarely, if ever, has the
inextricable link between recycling and carbon
dioxide emission savings been so clearly drawn.
And rarely, if ever, has the recycling industry
attracted such unequivocal support from an
environmental big hitter. Lord Nicholas Stern
of Brentford, famous around the world for
authoring the renowned Stern Report on cli-
mate change, listened to previous speakers at
BIR’s General Assembly in Monte-Carlo and
then declared in his keynote address that he
was ‘very impressed by what I have learned
today’. In terms of the battle to reduce green-
house gas emissions and thereby avoid drastic
climatic consequences, recyclers ‘should be the
heroes of this story’, he insisted. ‘You have got a
splendid story and I would encourage you very
strongly to tell it.’
Temperature warning
Lord Stern had earlier outlined his interpreta-
tion of the world’s current predicament.
Growth in the stock of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere was accelerating because of the
planet’s reduced ability to absorb it. If no
action were taken, this stock was on course to
climb from its present level of around 430
parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide equiv-
alent to upwards of 800 ppm by the end of the
current century, opening up a ‘50/50 probabil-
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