At the BIR Ferrous Division meeting of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) held lately in Barcelona, participants discussed the steel industry’s carbon emission reduction targets and the proposed revision of the EU’s waste shipment regulation.
Eric Niedziela, chairman of ArcelorMittal France and vice president climate action at ArcelorMittal Europe, stated that he anticipates that European steelmakers will demand higher quantities of scrap in their attempts to reduce carbon emissions. Noting the group’s strategy for reducing carbon emissions by 25 percent by 2030, Mr. Niedziela stated that ArcelorMittal plans to have the world’s first full-scale zero-emissions steel plant by 2025 at Sestao in Spain and is looking to secure its raw material supply via acquisitions, long-term contracts, and joint ventures. Speaking about scrap exports to the countries which would compete in the European steel market with more carbon-intensive products, he stated that scrap exports should be properly managed in Europe.
Stating that the steel industry should not seek to achieve its goals “at the expense of free trade in scrap”, Tom Bird, BIR president, said that, if scrap exports were compromised, recycling rates would go down and no investments would take place within the recycling industry, negatively impacting the steel industry.
Cinzia Vezzosi, past president of the European Recycling Industries’ Confederation, stated that stopping free trade out of Europe through the proposed revision of the EU’s Waste Shipment Regulation would break the circular economy chain in Europe and lead to lower collection rates. She said that shutting down free trade in scrap will create a massive earthquake in the market.