Page 44 from: Recycling International November/December issue 2024
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A U T H O R S Kirstin Linnenkoper, Martijn Reintjes
Danny Pormes (The Netherlands)
Former marine Pormes runs a revolutionary shoe recycling facili-
ty in the north of the Netherlands. The plant can pulverise 2 500
used sneakers per hour into raw materials for playground equipment and
sports fields – and new shoes. The recently launched Neocurve sneaker,
made from Asics’ discarded sports shoes, are recycled directly from
Pormes’ bins.
The founder of FastFeetGrinded has a mission to make the shoe industry
circular. ‘Seventy million shoes are produced worldwide every day, of which
less than 5% are ultimately recycled. We really need to do something about
this.’ Pormes wants to bring the concept to other countries such as
Indonesia and Australia.
Antonia Biggs
(Chile)
As general manager
of Chile’s national recycling
industry body ANIR, Biggs is a
passionate advocate of the sec-
tor. She speaks at conferences
around the world. Chile has a
long way to go when it comes
to modern recycling, says
Biggs, but there’s so much to
win, especially in the field of
solar panel and tyre recycling.
‘When comparing the recycling
processes of Chile with Europe,
you may conclude that the level
of industrialisation is relatively
low.’
Cindy Miller (USA)
Miller became the first female president
and ceo of Stericycle in 2018, after
more than 20 years in various leadership positions.
She has won multiple accolades for her work at the
medical waste manager based in Bannockburn,
Illinois. Examples include being featured in Forbes’
top 50 entrepreneurs in 2021 and a Gold Stevie
Award for Best Women in Business in 2023.
Stericycle treats around 600 000 tonnes of medical
waste every year. Miller says a recent company
milestone has been unveiling a hospital, medical
and infectious waste incinerator facility in
McCarran, Nevada, in October. She believes the
EUR 103 million site will serve as a blueprint for
future operations across North America.
Ibrahim Aboura (UAE)
The third generation to lead the Aboura family business. With
seven yards handling some 150 000 tonnes of non-ferrous scrap
per year, Aboura Metals is one of the biggest businesses of its kind in the
Middle East. The company operates facilities and yards in Jordan, Egypt,
UAE and Saudi Arabia and has trading hubs in Kuwait, Lebanon and Sudan.
Meanwhile, the Aboura family continues to invest in people and tools by
expanding its operations, adding new furnaces for its aluminium alloy pro-
duction and furnaces for copper, along with new cable shredding machines
to increase capacity.
Since June 2023, Aboura has been chairman of BIR’s Communications
Committee where he does a great job.
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Marc Ehrlich (Switzerland)
Recovered paper recycler Ehrlich is
always looking for opportunities to
grow his business and company, Vipa. In 2022, to
get better control within all major sourcing
regions, the company launched Vipa Japan, Vipa
UAE and Vipa Ireland, and started a metals divi-
sion and a prime paper division. Vipa USA, which
started in 2019, is growing year-on-year.
Summarising the company activities, the entrepre-
neur says: ‘Altogether, more than 100 000 mari-
time containers of circular economy per year.’
Ehrlich says the biggest change in the paper recy-
cling business has come from legislation.
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Mariska Boer (The Netherlands)
Mariska Boer is a Dutch textiles expert at
Boer Group, based in Dordrecht, the
Netherlands. The company treats around 400 tonnes of
textiles per day. She also serves as the chair of the
nationwide textiles collection and sorting organisation
VHT. Boer is a well-known face in the recycling industry
due to appearances at international conferences and
trade shows, often on behalf of EuRIC, for which she
became textiles division president in 2019. Boer insists
the system in the Netherlands and many other European
countries ‘has to change drastically and quickly’ if the
industry has any chance of maintaining the infrastructure
it has painstakingly created.
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