EU steel industry seeks consistency on recycling

The European Steel Association (EUROFER), which represents steel companies and steel federations throughout the European Union, is calling for the revised Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) to keep its definition of the ‘final recycling’ process. The Environment Committee of the European Parliament will be voting on the Directive on January 24, 2017.

In a statement, the EUROFER says that the provision on ‘final recycling’ – originally proposed by the European Commission – will allow the industry to measure ‘real’ recycling.

“Steel is 100% recyclable and the steel industry is itself one of the largest recyclers in Europe. The scrap sourced by steel companies is efficiently transformed by our industrial processes into various products,” says Axel Eggert, EUROFER’s director general. “It is therefore important that the revision of the Waste Framework Directive recognizes this through the adoption of the definition of final recycling process, to better support recycling in Europe.”

“Passing from the various existing recycling calculation methodologies to just one new methodology cannot be achieved overnight, but it is necessary and needs the cooperation of all the stakeholders involved,” Eggert adds. “The measurement of real recycling, assessing the recycling rates at the input into the final recycling process, is one of the cornerstones that needs to be in place to build-up a functioning circular economy in which unintended trade-offs are avoided.”

“EUROFER call on the European Parliament to support this view, laying thus the foundation elements of the Circular Economy within the Waste Framework Directive,” Eggert says.