While the EU seeks to curb its import
dependency on raw materials through better re-use and recycling, the bloc
remains a top exporter of all sorts of waste – including paper, plastics and
metals.
Instead of being re-used in Europe,
waste resources are increasingly being shipped overseas to fuel booming Asian
economies, despite Brussels'
push to promote waste as a valuable commodity.
Europe's rising waste export is not
confined to illegal hazardous materials, which made headlines when it emerged
that poor workers in India
have been dismantling rubbish from batteries to used warships containing
Asbestos.
Exports also relate to the legal
shipments of non-hazardous wastes such as metals, paper and plastic. These do
not need to be notified as they have an economic value and represent a useful
source of secondary raw material for emerging economies.
According to a 2008 report by the
European Environment Agency (EEA), the volume of these exports has increased
significantly between 1995 and 2005, particularly to China
and the Far East.
While China
is the dominant player of the major Asian economies, India
and Indonesia
are also sourcing materials from the EU to fuel domestic industries.
In the EU-15, exports of waste paper
alone increased from 1.2 to 7.8 million tonnes during that period – with
exports to China
rising from almost zero to 4.5 million tonnes.
For waste plastics, the rise was from
0.2 to 1.6 million tonnes, of which half was sent to China
and Hong Kong. According to the EEA, the most
significant type of waste plastic exported – over 1 million tonnes– is of
parings and scrap plastic from polymers of ethylene.
The four main categories of waste
metals being exported are iron and steel, copper, aluminium and nickel. But
much more is being exported in the form of electronic waste such as mobile
phones and laptops.
For waste iron and steel, exports went
from 6.7 to 8.1 million tonnes and the export of waste copper, aluminium and
nickel from the EU-25 was almost 1.6 million tonnes in 2005.
Drivers of waste export
Factors driving waste exports are
numerous and the EU's environmental rules and standards are seen as an
incentive as proper recycling at home can be expensive.
The bloc’s laws governing waste
disposal require more recycling for all sorts of waste streams such as paper
and plastic, and seek to prohibit dumping in landfills. Incineration is also heavily taxed in most of
Europe.
The cheapest option available may be to
simply ship the waste away to countries where health and environmental
standards for recycling as well as labour costs are significantly lower.
But it is not only about opting for
cheaper treatment outside the EU.
Economic growth and the related increasing
costs of virgin raw materials and fossil fuels have also created a higher price
for secondary raw materials, increasing the international market for recovered
metals, paper, glass, and special kinds of plastics (PET) of high quality, the
EEA notes.
And in a number of countries imports of
copper and other scrap metals, for example, are tax free.
An important factor for the EU waste
exports to China is the
rather low price of the transport: container ships filled with consumer goods
from China to European ports might well travel back
empty if they are not transformed into a profitable return cargo filled with
waste for reprocessing.
According to the EEA, a loaded 40-foot
container can be shipped from the EU to Hong Kong for some €500, helping China and other
Asian economies cost-effectively satisfy their demand for paper, plastic and
other materials from the EU’s industrial and municipal waste streams.
As investigated by the UK newspaper,
The Guardian, this trade is actually “starving some local recycling initiatives
of materials and putting established firms out of business or at risk” in
Europe. Whereas expanding national recycling industry would be good for the
environment, create local jobs and boost green technologies.
Exporting energy through waste
Patrick de Schrynmakers, secretary
general of the European Aluminium Association (EAA), argued that with its scrap
exports Europe is also exporting cheap energy and helping China to
decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Aluminium scrap, for example, is a
highly energy containing material, as 95% less energy is needed when it is
recycled, compared to producing aluminium from virgin bauxite.
De Schrynmakers told EurActiv that
compared to other commodities, there is no shortage of aluminium in China and they
could easily produce all they need, but “their limitation is electricity,
energy.”
“Energy is the key and that is
precisely where they [Chinese] have problems,” de Schrynmakers said, adding
that when coupling the lack of energy with China’s desire to produce less
greenhouse gas emissions, “you can understand why they seek to buy all scrap
available”.
He also deplored the fact that China is
subsidising the use of scrap, with full VAT rebates for imported aluminium
scrap. “Last year, China
imported 3.7 million tons of scrap – pitifully enough – most of it from Europe,” he said.
And while the industry wants to
increase its recycling rates in Europe to lower its environmental footprint, de
Schrynmakers noted that “it would be particularly unpleasant to see that if we
increase our collection rates, then the recycling goes and happens in China.”
He also noted that Europe used to be a
net importer of aluminium scrap – importing, for example, almost all of Russia’s aluminium scrap until Russia put a
50% export duty on it - but is now a significant net exporter.
The industry would like to see quotas
or export duties adopted for the export of EU scrap. De Schrynmakers criticised
European authorities for merely saying: “We cannot do it because we need to show
a good example. We cannot criticise others for doing something while we are
doing it ourselves.”
Source: EurActiv. 11 October 2011
