Recycling should be given higher priority than climate change in developing countries, established waste expert Ranjit S. Baxi has written in his new book.
Recycling Our Future: A Global Strategy discusses the challenges facing the recycling industry on the world stage – with the author focussing on the problems caused by illegal shipments and the need to treat other nations as partners as well as customers.
Mr Baxi who has over 30 years experience trading waste around the world is a renowned authority on the industry and treasurer of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR). He also founded J & H Sales (International) Ltd a firm which exports recovered secondary fibre for recycling from the US and Europe to the Indian sub-continent and the Far East.
In the book, he argues that in order to sustain raw materials in the future, Europe, the USA, China and India will all have to create a common standard to increase the number of end markets for remanufacturing.
Partners
He also claims that more focus should be put on developing waste recycling in African countries, which he believes could become global partners in the industry, rather than places for Western countries to export their waste.
He writes: It may be an unpopular suggestion, but rather than spending so much money on combating climate change part of global international aid should be focused on waste recovery in African countries where we can promote this industry and bring it to a sustainable level to the point where they can be equal partners in providing usable raw material for the planet.
‘By recycling we are reducing the emission of greenhouse gases which we know has a direct effect on the climate. I would say recycling must be given a higher priority because by promoting recycling we are, for example, saving the forest and reducing carbon emissions two important elements affecting climate change.’
– Ranjit S. Baxi, Recycling Our Future: A Global Strategy
He adds: By recycling we are reducing the emission of greenhouse gases which we know has a direct effect on the climate. I would say recycling must be given a higher priority because by promoting recycling we are, for example, saving the forest and reducing carbon emissions two important elements affecting climate change.
Meanwhile, in the UK, Mr Baxi argues that there should be more emphasis on producing quality over quantity in recycling, arguing that there are too many materials recycling facilities that are running on the volume principle.
He also says it is worth remembering that it is the householder who is providing much of the raw material for the global market in recycling, which is essentially a money-making opportunity from which the public sees little of the proceeds.
‘Give something back’
He elaborates that waste companies should give something back to their contracted communities citing the widespread floods at the end of 2013 as a missed opportunity for firms to help repair the damage.
He states: In order to raise the profile of waste collection and its importance some companies might consider putting something back into the communities from which they profit.
The point is to emphasise that the community and the recycling company are partners in the enterprise; households and businesses create waste, the waste is collected and recycled in order to produce more goods which we all need and buy only to create more waste.
The new book was published by Whittles Publishing and printed by DS Smith. Mr Baxi acknowledges support from BIR as well as international trade bodies including the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries and the Voice of Recycling in the USA.
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