BIR Convention: Recycling is low-hanging fruit for emissions reduction

Presenters at the Non-Ferrous Metals Division meeting at the recent Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) World Recycling Convention acknowledged the market had been turbulent this year, but predicted better times lie ahead for the sector.

At the fall 2023 BIR convention, which took place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in late October, Deepesh Goyal, chief commercial officer of Fujairah Gold in the UAE, offered his viewpoint as someone who works for a subsidiary of India-based conglomerate Vedanta Resources Ltd.

Goyal said his company was producing a range of primary metals five years ago and didn’t want to get into secondary. “But because of the ESG [environmental, social and governance] goals and other commitments, we primary producers feel we cannot leave this low-hanging fruit if we are to reduce our carbon footprints," he added.

The metals producer said demand from the electric vehicle and renewable energy industries meant the global outlook for copper was “great,” offering opportunities for recyclers. Overall demand was set to increase by 1 million metric tons every year until 2030.

Consumption in the Middle East was expected to grow by nearly 50 percent over the same period, greater than the global average, Goyal said.

He identified the key challenges for recyclers as being regulations, trade restrictions, quality consistency, transparency over trading deals and low margins, saying Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries export around 200,000 metric tons of red metal scrap annually and that offered an opportunity for those looking to refine scrap locally.

Asked if there were any plans for Vedanta to acquire recyclers or secondary producers, he said his company was ready to invest and was looking for technology solutions. “We need a constant feed of secondary metals to make it viable and sustainable,” Goyal said.

He also said secondary metals were increasingly used in his company’s products. For copper, the current figure of 15 percent would soon rise to 20 percent. “Internally, we hope to get to 30 percent, but quality and consistency is the issue," he added.

The company was also investing in the integration of other secondary metals, such as zinc and lead.

More optimism came from Joe Pickard, chief economist and director of commodities at the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI). In the short term, however, Pickard acknowledged difficulties.

“When I talk to our ISRI members, there’s not a single one who says 2023 has been a better year than 2022, or 2021 for that matter,” Pickard said. “Going forward, we have some tremendous opportunities to grow our businesses. Even though we are experiencing some short-term challenges, the medium-to-longer-term prospect is incredibly bright for our industry.”

Although United States economic figures have been positive, this year there has been a real divergence in different sectors, Pickard said, with the service sector outperforming manufacturing for nearly a year. Even so, he said spreads for U.S. recycled copper and aluminum over the same period had held relatively steady, with supply and demand generally in balance.

Pickard said with additional recycling capacity being built in the U.S., a trend toward lower proportions of nonferrous exports was likely to set in. Several new facilities are coming online in the U.S. to melt copper and aluminum scrap. Pickard noted Aluminum Dynamics and Novelis as having announced multibillion-dollar projects that could “tighten market balances going forward.”

China’s drive to cut low-quality scrap imports meant the U.S. was now exporting higher quality nonferrous grades, such as bare bright and No. 1 and No. 2 copper. India, Pickard said, was now the second biggest market for all recycled commodities combined and offered potential for greater trade.

Paul Coyte, president of the Brussels-based BIR Non-Ferrous Metals Division and trading manager and managing director of Hayes Metals in New Zealand, also was upbeat during his opening comments.

“We are the traders, the processors, consumers and the manufacturers that are collectively making the world a better place,” he said. “What we receive as raw material and reuse is contributing to millions of tons of net carbon emissions savings every year, and it is something we should celebrate.

“Another thing we should celebrate is 75 years of being an organization. It’s incredible to see how far BIR has come over those 75 years, and yet the principles remain the same.”