In the 1990s, as the recycling industry became increasingly global and China’s manufacturing sector boomed, some companies gained immediate advantages by establishing trans-oceanic trading partnerships with China.
Ciparo BV, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and led by Thijs Cox and Joris de Caluwe, was among these leading-edge firms that quickly and effectively linked recycled materials generators in Europe with consumers of recycled materials in China.
Cox has only recently moved back to the Netherlands after living in China for 22 years. While there, he helped Ciparo BV establish itself as a critical recovered fibre and plastic scrap supplier to the paper mill and plastic manufacturing sectors of China as they grew into major global forces.
Trade routes
“Ciparo was formed in the mid-1990s when some Dutch paper traders who lived in China and the Netherlands met and found good synergy in trading paper from Europe to China,” says Cox. This occurred at a time when Chinese mills were aggressively seeking recovered fibre to feed the growing packaging and printing industry, he comments. (The founders of Ciparo included Louis Hogendoorn, who passed away in 2007.)
Although Ciparo BV has always sought ways to diversify its business—such as by trading in plastics and marketing recycled-content manufactured products—shipping recovered fibre from Europe to China has always been a core activity.
“When I first came to China, trees were chopped in the north of China to make newsprint,” recalls Cox, who arrived in the country in 1992. At that same time, he says, “The price for waste paper in Europe was negative, as there was more collection than demand. So we grabbed the opportunity to make the world greener and cleaner and never let go.”
Reinforcing the words of traders and recyclers worldwide, Cox says he and de Caluwe understood early on that forging strong relationships and providing outstanding customer service would be keys to long-lasting success. “Our philosophy centers on having good service and representation in Europe and China, and from there build a good relationship and partnerships with our buyers and suppliers.”
Trained as an industrial engineer, Cox says that between learning Chinese culture and trying to absorb as much technical knowledge as possible, his chosen path has kept him engaged.
“I’ve always found it fascinating that there is now a world market for scrap paper, plastics and metals,” he comments. “I grew up in a small village in the Netherlands that had a huge landfill which is now closed, as waste just doesn’t exist [there] anymore.”
Market expansions
During its two decades in existence, Ciparo has bolstered the size of its scrap paper trading business, added plastic scrap trading and new product distribution to its menu of services, and has widened the geographic scope of its business.
“Ciparo specialises in recycled and reclaimed paper and plastics and overproduction paper lots,” notes Cox. “Furthermore, we have a growing business in paper products distribution in Europe,” he says, adding that these products “can be picked up for recycling after usage.” The result, says Cox, “is we create our own [scrap] paper.”
Although arranging for containers full of recovered fibre to flow from Rotterdam to ports in China remains a key activity, Cox says Ciparo also has pursued opportunities that have broadened the company’s global footprint.
Making waves Profitably exporting scrap materials from one nation to another can be challenging enough, but Thijs Cox, director of Ciparo BV, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, says the European Union and global regulatory climate the last several years has made the seas even choppier. When asked if there are any governmental issues he sees on the horizon at the EU or global level, Cox replies, “Let’s hope not!” He elaborates: “We’ve had the Annex 7 procedure, AQSIQ registration, Green Fence, regular customs checks, the Goddess of the Earth campaign and anti-dumping charges for new paper we shipped from China to Europe.” Cox says he does not want to diminish the important role of regulations. “The purpose of these actions are all good, as they should end unethical trading and waste smuggling. But we are paying the price for it and a lot of business is just not there anymore. For example, if customers do not have their licenses in order on time, then we have to stop shipping.” Most frustrating, he says, is when regulations clash with each other. “We see that regulations from different departments and countries often do not match with each other. Now we hear that there are some efforts by the European industry to convince national or European governments to limit the export of waste paper and waste plastic. In my opinion this is not right, as prices will drop as the export markets disappear and collectors [may] stop collecting.” That, says Cox, is not a way to encourage greater landfill diversion and recycling. |
“For paper products, we buy from countries that have consumption-oriented economies and a lot of scrap paper collection, such as in Europe, America and the Middle East,” says Cox. “We sell to countries that have production-oriented economies and lack raw materials, such as east Asian countries and India.”
Plastic scrap flows may be different, says Cox. “A lot of developing countries do not have a recycled-content manufacturing industry but they have collection, so you can pick recycled plastic up in those countries and ship it to China or Vietnam.”
A result of these varying flows is that Ciparo maintains trading offices in different parts of the world, with five offices in China, one in the Netherlands, two in Vietnam, and warehouses in the Netherlands, Belgium and China, says Cox.
“The purpose of each warehouse is to distribute products to the market, as the buying volume per order is often much bigger than the sales volume,” he continues. “Furthermore some buyers are not familiar with import procedures or foreign currency and do not want to have the hassle to order stock in advance.”
The additional warehouses also help Ciparo adapt to changing conditions. “Due to the digitalisation of news, advertisement and banking, collection in our traditional buying markets is dropping, so we have to look for new donor countries,” he comments. “We used to sell the majority of our volume to China, but big Chinese paper conglomerates have landed in Europe to purchase their own fibre, and smaller paper mills in China are often having a tough time, so we also are now active in more Asian countries than just China.”
Coping with changes in the market and to regulations is the job of every Ciparo employee, says Cox. “The market conditions are changing rapidly,” he comments. “We see that the market is severely regulated. The majority of the people we hire are university graduates who prepare our export documentation and follow all the regulations in the different countries where we are active.” The net result, says Cox, is that Ciparo bears considerable costs for activities that do not increase its profit margin, but merely satisfy regulators. (For more comments on this topic, see the sidebar “Making waves.”)
Cox says his preference would be for the additional employees to seek out more material to recycle.
“There is a fight for fibres that is going on as collection of certain grades is dropping,” he says. ”We have to watch our costs as tonnage is not ensured, but the costs you have as a company are not likely to drop.”
Full circle loop
One way that Ciparo is diversifying to prepare for its future is in the distribution of what it considers to be eco-friendly finished paper products.
“We have chosen these products because we like and love them,” says Cox, referring in part to a paper drinking cup Ciparo distributes. “The first product we offered was made from the leftover fibre of sugar cane—there is no need to add sugar or sweetener in your coffee,” he quips.
“This product was developed further to become cup2paper; which is a paper cup made of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified paper with a coating of bioplastic,” Cox continues. “The cup can be re-used and at the end of its useful life it will be recycled.”
Ciparo also is exploring the concept of “Eco Euros,” explains Cox: “We pay people who give us paper, plastic or metal for recycling with ‘green money’ that is then spent on products made of green raw material, so you create a sustainable economy.”
While Ciparo explores ways to close the recycling loop, Cox is also closing a loop by moving back to the Netherlands in 2014, bringing fresh ideas with him.
“After 22 years in China, I’m going back to the Netherlands to work on our plans for the circular sustainable economy,” says Cox. “We are working on a collection machine for consumers that can reward them with green purchase value in the future. We also have a lot of ideas to introduce products made from collected waste streams, like making pens and writing paper from waste paper (waste2write), making garments and cups from PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles (plastics2plastics) and sharing my experience, knowledge and friendships with my colleagues and our suppliers in Europe.”
No matter where he lives, Cox, along with de Caluwe and the associates of Ciparo BV, plans to continue the mission of recycling the world’s materials. “We want to make the world cleaner and greener, which means that we should find worldwide outlets for our waste.”
Concludes Cox, “We see a good future for the world and for ourselves in connecting recycling and the use of paper and plastic consumer goods together, so the result is a circular and sustainable economy.”
Winning by losing Most of the story of Ciparo BV, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, involves the company growing its volume of tonnes traded and expanding into new countries and new materials. Ciparo BV director Thijs Cox, however, also is willing to recount a noteworthy misstep that the company made along the way. “Several years ago we had our baling facility in Rotterdam, but all the big players were seeing us as a competitor, so we could not get their supply,” he recalls. “Furthermore we were in the middle of the petro-chemical industrial area in Rotterdam, which has a lot of oil tanks and even some ever-burning flames to burn waste fumes. So when you have 14,000 tonnes of waste paper in outdoor storage and it’s windy, you get a lot of questions,” he recalls. Subsequently, Ciparo made the decision to shutter its baling plant and it has not looked back since. “Now, we do not do much processing as there is no need for it. We took the strategic decision to leave the site and hand it over to the harbour authorities, and from that moment our trading business expanded rapidly. We were no longer seen as a competitor anymore by big collectors but as a partner for export.” |
The author is editor of Recycling Today Global Edition and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.
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