Electronics recycling stakeholders joined companies from across the materials recovery spectrum at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas last month for the ISRI2024 conference, which culminated in the long-running trade association unveiling a new name.
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries announced at the end of the April 15-18 conference that it will now be known as the Recycled Materials Association, or ReMA. In a presentation about the name change, leaders at the industry association said ISRI’s rebranding had its roots in a 2012 focus group convened by ISRI to gauge public perceptions of recycling.
“It was a pretty eye-opening event, and revealed to many of us that the public saw us in a very different way than we saw ourselves,” said Brian Henesey, the organization’s outgoing chairman, during the closing session of the conference.
The public image of recycling has evolved substantially since then and has taken an increasingly negative turn in recent years, said Michael Maslansky, CEO of Maslansky + Partners, which assisted with the rebrand. At the same time, government regulators were taking a stronger interest in recycling and brands increasingly came into the recycling space, sometimes overshadowing recycling operators themselves, Maslansky said.
“This industry was not getting the credit that it deserved,” he said. By 2022, ISRI’s leadership decided to explore a name change. One of the key goals was to focus on the outcome of recycling – material production – rather than the first step in the process, scrap recycling. The group also sought to respond to a public perception that scrap equates with junk, even if industry stakeholders don’t hold that same association.
In addition to the name change, ReMA has a new tagline: “Sustainable. Resilient. Essential.” In a statement on the rebrand, the organization said these terms reflect the environmental aspects of recycling, its contribution to a resilient economy and its importance in providing staple products used in everyday life.
