Recycling Creates Business Chances

In view of the multifarious business opportunities provided in the recycling sector, it is hardly surprising that there are many matchmaking platforms on each continent to connect businesses.

One example is the European Recycling Conference, which took place this September in Berlin. This event was organized by EuRIC – the European Recycling Industries’ Confederation – in partnership with three specialist associations in Germany: BDSV (Bundesvereinigung Deutscher Stahlrecycling- und Entsorgungsunter­nehmen e.V.), the Association of German Steel Recycling Companies; VDM (Verband Deutscher Metallhändler e. V.), the German Federation of Metal Traders and bvse (Bundesverband Sekundärrohstoffe und Entsorgung e.V.), the German Federal Association for Secondary Raw Materials and Waste Disposal. The second edition of the European Recycling Conference offered national and international networking opportunities for the participants – traders, recyclers, consumers and machinery suppliers from across Europe.

Another occasion to find partners and investment possibilities is the TEF Entrepreneurship Forum in the Nigerian city Lagos. On October 25 this year, entrepreneurs, global investors, representatives from the African public and private sectors as well as development organizations will meet to exchange ideas and forge networks by bringing together the different actors.

In light of many waste management practices in African countries – backlogs in waste collection coverage, disposal to open dumps or unsanitary landfills, often recycling of waste not undertaken to a sufficient extent – there are tremendous opportunities in waste as a secondary resource. According to a recent report, published this year by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the value of the potentially recoverable resources, that are not currently being collected and are essentially lost to the economy, is estimated at 7.6 billion US-Dollar per year. That is a considerable amount of money. The situation with regard to the African continent is described from page three onwards. In this issue of GLOBAL RECYCLING you can take a closer look at the recycling activities of three African countries as well: While in the Republic of Cameroon recycling is becoming increasingly important (page 19), the Republic of Kenya takes first reliable steps to change its waste management (page 22). Against the background of economic growth, the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire offers great opportunities for investment, particularly since the waste management sector still needs help (page 25).

As secondary materials are part of the global economy, the circular economy is definitely a business chance for all market actors. According to the recent visions of this concept, it can be implemented by encompassing all aspects of resource efficiency from production to consumption. However, to realize a development to a circular way of economy, all actors along the value chain have to be integrated, the German Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics is convinced. In the opinion of the experts, adapted logistic concepts to coordinate both material and information flow are inevitable – besides approaches to product design for recycling and new business models. Their proposal, how logistical trends could support the transformation towards a circular economy, is described from page six onwards.

We hope you get a lot of new and useful information from reading this current magazine (3/2018).

Yours
Brigitte Weber