Page 8 from: Recycling International May/June issue 2023

8

The man at
the cutting edge
Tom Bird steps down as president of the Bureau of International Recycling at its

Amsterdam convention in late May. His four years in office have seen a pandemic,

war crippling one of the world’s biggest steel markets, and growing concerns

about regulations affecting free trade. It’s also been a period in growth for BIR. As

he prepares for Amsterdam, Bird reflects on his time in office and a return to the

sharp end of the industry.

the same cooperation or connection.
So we were able to help by ensuring
that governments considered recy-
cling to be an essential industry. In
India, we even wrote to the president
himself and that partnership with
Indian organisations has continued.’

AND EVENTS HAD TO GO
ONLINE?
‘Yes, and the conventions were a great
success. The content was excellent
and that also demonstrated the
importance of BIR. When we came out
of the pandemic the recent numbers
speak for themselves: record atten-
dances at and membership and our
finances are strong. The days of only
400-500 attendees are gone.’

THE WAR IN UKRAINE MUST
HAVE POSED A VERY DIFFERENT
CHALLENGE, ESPECIALLY AS BIR
HAS RUSSIAN AFFILIATES AND
SOME GOVERNMENTS HAVE
BEEN LESS WILLING TO CON-
DEMN THE INVASION?
‘First of all, we have Ukrainian mem-
bers, one of whose business was
destroyed. We also had certain com-
munications from companies who
wanted firm assurances that BIR would
take a firm stand. So we took a diffi-
cult decision not to accept new appli-
cations from Russian companies and
we suspended payments from the
association and that was the right
thing to do. It was a balancing act
because certain countries don’t have
the same view but we have had no
pushback from them; the actions we
took were fully understood.’

ACTIONS USUALLY HAVE CON-
SEQUENCES AND WE’VE SEEN A
BIG IMPACT ON ENERGY PRICES
AS A RESULT – WHICH HAS HIT
THE RECYCLING INDUSTRY.
‘All we can do is support our members.
We were hearing horror reports on the
escalation of costs, particularly for high
capital-intensive operations such as
shredders. Some of the figures quoted
included an eightfold increase in bills.
There wasn’t a lot that BIR could do
because it was right across the sector.
People at home had similar problems

YOUR TIME AS PRESIDENT HAS
SEEN CERTAINLY SOME BIG
CHALLENGES.
‘Indeed. I took over and we all slipped
into the pandemic. But, in a sense,

that was a good opportunity for BIR
to do a reset. Up until then, a lot of
people viewed BIR as being a couple
of conferences a year that were very
well organised and very well attended

and that that was the main focus. The
pandemic allowed BIR to demonstrate
the importance of the role it has in
advocacy which may not always have
been appreciated.’

WHAT WAS A PRACTICAL CON-
SEQUENCE OF THAT?
‘When we went into lockdown there
were different rules in different loca-
tions and BIR was very active in help-
ing industry within those regions. It
not only pushed the prominence of
BIR but also enabled us to engage
with the national associations. Until
that time the relationship between BIR
and some of the associations had
been at times distant – there wasn’t

A U T H O R Robin Latchem

Tom Bird:
‘Export
restrictions
don’t work: you
don’t
invest and you
shoot yourself
in the foot in
terms of the cir-
cular economy
which is global
rather than
regional.’

08-09_interviewtombird.indd 8 03-05-2023 16:51