Page 37 from: September 2014

37September 2014

Why did you decide to write this book?
‘During my many years in the business, I

noticed there is a lack of education about recy-

cling, about how it operates and how it should

operate. When I say “should operate”, I do not

mean in a technical way, but in terms of qual-

ity. Quality constraints are so important: if we

do not create the right quality of recyclable

product, it is not going to be usable for the end

user – the producer who needs secondary paper,

plastics or metal. Quality really is the driving

force for recycling today.

So I thought there was a need for education, for

creating awareness about recycling. For

instance, people ask me: “Why should I keep

my household or industrial waste in different

bins?” Hardly anyone knows the difference

between the types of plastics used to make a

milk bottle, HDPE, and Coca Cola bottles,

which is PET. As a result, they mix the two

together, which raises the cost for the recycling

industry and kills commercial incentive.

Another issue I raise in my book is the fact that

our natural resources are limited and so we

have to promote recycling.’

What is the target audience for
your book?
‘I have tried to write a reference book for people

across all sectors – the industry, waste proces-

sors, consumers, students and legislators. There

is a lot of legislation our industry is facing and

that is a good thing because it brings control

and discipline to our sector. But over-legislation

becomes a liability and, unfortunately, the recy-

cling industry is currently over-legislated.

That’s why I have also written this book with

legislators in mind, to show them how they

could balance the legislative burden so as not

to hinder the movement of waste, as long as this

waste is of the right quality. All the red tape is

not really necessary. Control should be carried

out at a very early stage to ensure that waste is

collected and processed correctly, and that the

end product is of the right quality. In that case,

waste stops being waste and instead becomes a

very well-defined and valuable raw material.

All that can be done with fewer bureaucratic

controls.’

When did you start the book?
‘Over the last four or five years, during my vis-

its to emerging economies, I noticed that many

people saw waste-to-energy as the only solution

for the waste problem. But once you have burnt

something, you have lost the use as a raw mate-

rial for good. So I thought to myself: there is a

need to educate people, to make them under-

stand our industry as well. About a year ago, I

decided I had to write the book. One day, while

I was on a 12-hour flight from Asia to Paris, I

took out my notebook and I started to write the

first chapter, and completed the whole book in

less than a year.’

What is its core message?
‘Besides education and raising awareness, I have

suggested in the last chapter seven steps to

improve recycling. One of them is the so-called

“EcoHub”, a large waste collecting and process-

ing plant or zone operating using modern tech-

nology. But all these technologies are expensive,

and for these to work well you need input in

terms of volume. That is why in Europe, the

USA and emerging countries, there are many

smaller recycling plants which are only focused

on one or two grades for which they have

enough volume. The other grades often get lost

or are produced as a second- or third-grade

material instead of upscaling to a raw material.

So I have come up with the concept of Eco-

Hubs, especially for regions such as the Middle

East and Africa where people are really con-

cerned about the environment and recycling.

Within such a hub, you could have large plas-

tics, paper, ferrous and non-ferrous processing

plants. So when waste is transported to the hub

from feeder yards, you can process all grades in

larger volumes within one hub. There are many

synergies between the different recycling plants,

so they can learn and profit from each other.’

What are the biggest problems and
bottlenecks facing the global recycling
industries?
‘The biggest challenge is waste collection

schemes, because the whole recycling chain

starts with collection. Different countries have

adopted different collection systems. In the

USA, for instance, you see single-stream, dual-

stream and kerbside collection, but munici-

palities often choose the easiest and cheapest:

single stream. That might have been the best

scheme some 20 years ago but, today, quality is

the key and this is very difficult to achieve with

a single-stream collection system. Of course,

the waste processing and recycling chain is

looking for cost savings as well, but these can

be achieved only if we collect waste in the right

way and transport it to a processing plant clos-

est to the source. That is one of the many

advantages that EcoHubs can bring. Waste is

generated mainly by industry, supermarkets

and, increasingly, households. Unfortunately,

there is no rocket science to getting households

to segregate their waste endlessly. The funda-

mental global challenge is to get people to sort

their wet and dry waste. The mixing of these is

ruining the possibilities of further processing,

which is predominantly the case with single-

stream collection. One of the biggest waste

problems is moisture. I would urge scientists

to look into the matter of how to get the mois-

ture out of the waste streams.’

In the long run, how can we solve the
problems facing the global recycling
industries today?
‘We need a new approach, as I explain in my

book. What we must realise first and foremost

is that our industry is dealing with valuable raw

materials, not with waste. We also have to

understand and accept that the recycling loop

must be seen as a global loop. I am very much

concerned that many people, especially politi-

cians, are talking about a loop within one coun-

try. They want what is produced or collected in

one country to be processed in that country.

But we all live on the same planet, breathe the

same air and we all pollute our planet. So there

definitely needs to be a global loop. When waste

generated in the USA or in Europe is shipped

to, for instance, China, where it is processed in

an environmentally friendly way and the end

product eventually comes back to the USA or

Europe where the waste originated, that’s fine

with me; it closes the loop.

In the book, I also warn against another big

problem: over-regulation of the waste and recy-

cling sector. Legislators should stop putting

bumps in the road for exporters of raw mate-

rial – although, of course, with strict controls

‘Legislators should
stop putting bumps in
the road for exporters

of raw material.’

Ranjit Baxi’s book:
‘ Recycling our future – a global strategy’

Words of education
and inspiration

RI-7 Interview.indd 37 28-08-14 15:09