In the recycling industry, conventions are the harbinger of spring. Recyclers from around the world had no shortage of events to choose from this year, including IFAT Entsorga and the Bureau of International Recycling’s (BIR’s) World Recycling Convention & Exhibition (pictured below).
Both shows attracted solid numbers of attendees and exhibitors in 2012. IFAT Entsorga, which was in Munich May 5-9, claimed the participation of a record-setting 125,000 visitors and close to 3,000 exhibitors this year. Meanwhile, the BIR World Recycling Convention, held in Rome from May 29 to June 1, exceeded the attendance expectations of its organizers, with roughly 1,300 attendees from some 60 countries.
IFAT Entsorga
Messe München International, the organizer of IFAT Entsorga 2012, reports that some 16,000 delegates participated in the conference program portion of the show, which included nearly 320 presentations and discussions. Topics included the Life-Cycle Resource Management Act, waste-to-energy, mega cities, water management and phosphorous recycling from sewage sludge.
In a statement, the organization reported that this year’s trade show broke records in terms of exhibitor numbers, exhibition space and visitors.
Dr. Johannes F. Kirchhoff, chairman of the IFAT Entsorga Advisory Board and managing partner of FAUN Umwelttechnik GmbH & Co. KG said, “IFAT Entsorga 2012 is remarkable for its large visitor numbers: significantly more guests than at the previous trade fair in 2010.” Kirchhoff said the show’s international customer profile also experienced outstanding growth.
Messe München also reported that this year’s mobile phone collection campaign generated significant interest from attendees. The collected mobile phones were to be recycled by the German firm Remondis Co., with the proceeds being donated to a charitable project.
Jennifer Liehn, U.S. office director for Messe München International, reported that international attendance of the event was strong, with some 50,000 of the 125,000 attendees coming from outside of Germany. Top visitor countries included Austria, Italy, Switzerland, the Russian Federation, the Netherlands, Denmark and the Czech Republic.
“IFAT Entsorga is the most important trade fair in the world,” stated Georg Huber, CEO of Huber SE, a wastewater technology company based in Berching, Germany. “The trade fair turned in yet another impressive performance in 2012 in terms of its diverse international profile and very good visitor numbers.”
Liehn said that feedback from exhibiting companies was quite positive, with 91% having rated the trade fair for the water, sewage, waste and raw materials management industries as either good or excellent. In addition Liehn reported that 97% of visitors characterized the conference events program as good to excellent.
Dave Oswalt, vice president of Gorman-Rupp International, said the diversity of the show’s attendees make it especially appealing for companies that serve a broad range of markets. “This is the fourth time that Gorman-Rupp has participated in IFAT Entsorga and each time we have expanded our presence with a larger stand,” Oswalt observed. “We will definitely be coming back to Munich in 2014.”
Esra Avicioglu with the Istanbul Chamber of Trade said this year, for the first time, the chamber took two pavilions at IFAT Entsorga: one on waste water and another on recycling. “We had many business contacts, and they were of a high quality,” Avicioglu noted. “We are very optimistic with regard to post-fair business—and already we are planning to expand our participation in 2014.”
Otto Schaaf, president of the German Association for Water, Wastewater and Waste, said, “At IFAT Entsorga what impresses most is the breadth and depth of the products and services on display and the comprehensive international coverage.” Schaaf also said the exhibition hall offered a broad display of the latest technology.
“IFAT Entsorga is also a meeting place for top managers, and large numbers of them come to this event,” Schaaf added.
The next IFAT Entsorga trade fair and conference is scheduled for May 5-9, 2014, in Munich, and some 3,000 international exhibiting companies are expected to take part. The five-day event is considered the world’s largest conference focusing on waste, raw materials management, water and sewage.
BIR World Recycling Convention
The 2012 BIR World Recycling Convention attracted roughly 1,300 attendees from some 60 countries to Rome from May 29 to June 1.
At the conference’s general assembly session, Thursday, May 31, BIR President Björn Grufman of Sweden-based Metallvärden AB said 2011 was the year in which the recycling industry achieved “a great success,” referencing the European Union’s End-of-Waste legislation.
“After decades of lobbying by the European BIR daughter associations EFR (European Ferrous Recovery and Recycling Federation) and Eurometrec, we were finally given the possibility within Europe of extracting our end products from the waste regime,” Grufman said. “End-of-waste criteria have already been introduced for iron, steel and aluminium scrap, and the industry’s efforts to secure a similar result for copper and recovered paper are well under way.”
According to Grufman, the global recycling industry “must be allowed the scope to develop—and with a healthy measure of profitability—in order to continue to make its important contribution to the sustainable society of our future.” Grufman noted that since the 2011 BIR World Recycling Convention, the association had welcomed 93 companies and two national associations (from China and Japan) as members.
While 2011 may have been a good year for the industry, a number of serious issues are causing rough weather for scrap processors and traders in 2012, but an underlying demand for secondary commodities remains a strong ray of sunshine.
In his address to the conference delegates, Grufman called 2011 “the year in which the world realized that you cannot keep borrowing money forever; someday you must pay it back.”
He pointed to several recycling industry success stories in the past 12 months.
The resulting austerity measures in Europe and other parts of the world have kept economic growth in check, but nonetheless “recycling markets showed positive trends” in 2011, Grufman said.
John Authers, senior investment analyst at The Financial Times, London, delivered the keynote address May 31. Authers pointed to Spain as a “pivotal country” in the current euro-zone crisis, suggesting that it is “too big to be allowed to leave the euro [zone]” and potentially “too big for current rescue funds” to cover all of its debts.
As the BIR convention was taking place, the euro was losing value against the dollar, and Authers remarked that in his view this would be a positive trend if it continued. While a return to greater parity between the dollar and the euro might adversely affect the United States and some emerging markets, the alternative—a disorderly collapse of the euro—would hit most economies (and especially Europe’s) even harder.
Even with a stronger dollar, Authers said he was “tentatively optimistic” about the U.S. economy.
Speakers at the BIR Convention Plastics Division meeting said that while some demand and pricing has fallen in plastic scrap markets in 2012, encouraging trends were evident.
Division chair Surendra Borad of Belgium-based Gemini Corp. N.V. noted that Saudi Arabia-based petrochemical giant Sabic has started into the business of reprocessed plastics “in a rather big way.”
Said Borad, “market forces and market sentiments have compelled the leading petrochemical producers to think of reprocessed materials as complimentary to existing business. This is very positive news.”
Regarding plastic scrap supplies, Borad told delegates, “The availability of plastics from waste electrical and electronics equipment (WEEE) will increase five-fold during the next seven years.”
He continued, “This means there will be 10 million metric tons of WEEE scrap, compared to the existing target of 2 million metric tons.”
While such long-term trends are encouraging, market reports from other Plastics Division members pointed to some near-term problems. “Many re-processors inside Europe suffer from a more difficult sale of their granules,” reported Borad, reading from the report of Netherlands-based recycler Peter Daalder of Daly Plastics.
Borad indicated that export markets are not necessarily better, commenting that “demand from India is very low.” Factors causing the weak Indian demand, according to Borad, is the depreciation of the Indian rupee by 10% in one month and freight rates from Europe to India that have increased by 150%.
Concerning the recovered paper segment, shippers have export markets, but freight rates are making some of them difficult to reach. Toward that end, attendees of the Paper Division meeting at the 2012 BIR World Recycling Convention heard encouraging news about global demand but discouraging words about freight rates.
And at the BIR Ferrous Division meeting, the sectors of the steel industry that consume ferrous scrap was characterized as weak, but with other sectors remaining hungry for ferrous scrap.
Blake Kelly, who works at the New York offices of Sims Metal Management, noted that on the supply side, there has been severe competition for unprepared scrap. Meanwhile, on the demand side, Kelley said that Taiwanese steelmakers were struggling to sell enough volume at sufficient prices.
The editorial staff of Recycling Today contributed to this feature.