Page 58 from: October 2005

J eanette Duttlinger, Managing Director ofSwiss recycling congress organiser ICM
(International Congress & Marketing), worked

for French hazardous waste processor Citron in
the early 1990s. She was responsible for organising

the global transportation of waste by ship, train and
truck, and for obtaining the necessary export

and import permits.
In 1994, she was also given the task of
organising an annual international con-
gress on battery recycling. Finding the
right speakers, attracting as many dele-
gates as possible, choosing the venue
and the hotels, arranging the network-
ing dinners and the entertainment –
this soon became the part of her job
that Mrs Duttlinger loved the most.

And after seven years with Citron, she came to
realise that she needed a new challenge.

‘I decided that I wanted to organise more con-
gresses on recycling topics,’ she explains. ‘I went to
my bosses and told them that I wanted to start my
own congress organising business. Putting her mon-
ey where her mouth was, Mrs Duttlinger quit her
job and returned to her native country Switzerland
where she set up ICM.

Disappointment and success

Mrs Duttlinger soon realised that the new com-
pany could not survive simply on the back of a sin-
gle congress and so she began thinking of other sub-
ject areas in the recycling sector which would lend
themselves to major international meetings. In the
end, she decided on end-of-life vehicles and elec-
tronics, and checked with leading recycling experts
whether such events might be of interest.

‘At that time, the EU Directive on End-of-Life
Vehicles (the ELV Directive) and the Directive on
Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment
(the WEEE Directive) were beginning to take shape

and I had a gut feeling that this would become big
business in the future,’ Mrs Duttlinger recalls. ‘It
was a disappointment to me that most of the people
I talked to had no faith in the idea of an interna-
tional congress on vehicle recycling. But I carried
on and eventually found people who were as enthu-
siastic about the idea as I was. Most of them are
still members of our congress Steering Committees.’

In 2001, ICM staged its first International
Automobile Recycling Congress (IARC) in Geneva,
Switzerland, and it became an instant success. ‘Next
year, we will hold the sixth of these congresses in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands,’ notes Mrs Duttlinger.

The success of the IARC inspired her to initiate a
third event: the International Electronics Recycling
Congress (IERC). The first of these events was held
in Davos, Switzerland, some three years ago and
the IERC has since become the world’s leading elec-
tronics recycling congress. The fifth IERC will be
held next year in Hamburg, Germany.

China adventure

ICM’s latest project is the World Recycling
Shanghai 2005 congress, which will take place on
November 8-11 at the Hotel Shangri-La in Pudong,
Shanghai, China. The event will combine the topics
of ICM’s three established congresses on automobile
recycling, electronics recycling and battery recycling.

When asked the reason for taking on this new
project, Mrs Duttlinger responds: ‘After five years of
organising our three congresses in Europe, I was
ready for a new challenge. We have seen over recent
years how China’s recycling industry has been
booming, but we have also noticed that knowledge
of recycling plant and technology, of collection and
take-back systems, and of new laws and legislation
is still in its infancy. The Chinese are eager to learn
from the successes – but also from the setbacks –
experienced in Europe and the USA.’

Last year, Mrs Duttlinger decided to investigate

I N T E R V I E W

Recycling International • October 2005 58

Next stop China for ICM’s congr e
Every year, Swiss congress organiser ICM stages international conferences cov-

ering the recycling of batteries, end-of-life vehicles and electronics. These attract

large numbers of delegates from the recycling industry and from a broad range of

institutions with a vested interest in these complex topics. Next month, ICM’s

first-ever event in China will combine the subject matter of its three successful

and established congresses.

By Manfred Beck

Jeanette Duttlinger set up International
Congress & Marketing in the year 2000.

Live entertainment is always laid on for the
networking dinners at ICM’s congresses, such
as this group of Brazilian dancers at the IARC
in Amsterdam earlier this year.