Recycling: Widening Acceptance

Globally, recycling is gaining more and more acceptance – and this sector is by far not only a men’s world. Internationally, there are many examples of income-creating activities for women regarding recycling. They work, for instance, in a solid waste management project in Jordan, funded by the Government of Canada and carried out by UNDP (United Nations Development Program) in coordination with the Ministry of Local Administration. They establish their own company to make money by creating quality fabric from recycled textile waste, collecting recyclable PET plastic from households or manufacturing bricks and tiles from plastic scrap and sand in Africa, to name but a few.

In the USA, the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has established the “Women in Recycling Council (WIR)” in 2021. This mentorship program “taps into existing knowledge, skills, and experiences of high-performing individuals and connects them with other ISRI members who want to expand their know­ledge and develop their skills to advance their career”. Partnered together for one year, mentors and mentees meet monthly to discuss important issues for them and their business.

The number of women in leading positions increases, too. The latest example of this development is Susie Burrage, the new elected President of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR). She is a businessperson and serves – on a voluntary basis – as president of British and European recycling organizations and as national and international ambassador for this sector. As the representative of the world recycling federation, the recycling professional explained her objectives during her mandate and underlined the positive development of the markets in an interview (page 28 onwards).

Business opportunities can be found everywhere in the world. For example, industry experts believe that Pakistan has to invest in waste treatment, recycling, and disposal in the near future because of the insufficient infrastructure in the country (page 4). Moreover, the Galapagos archipelago, composed of 127 islands, islets and rocks, is confronted with a growing amount of waste (page 32).

In Poland, a new recycling line for post-consumer beverage cartons started operations. According to the investors, it has the potential to triple the annual recycling capacity of beverage cartons in the country from 25,000 to 75,000 tons (page 22). The recently launched “CIRCULOSE Supplier Network” intends to bring recycling pulp to the market (page 37). And the German research pro­ject EnEWA is developing a solution for recovering and recycling paper from mixed waste streams (page 40).

We hope you get a lot of new and useful information from reading this current magazine.

Yours, Brigitte Weber