The Bureau of International Recycling says recycling companies in Europe and elsewhere are struggling with high energy prices. | Hanna Taniukevich/Shutterstock
An international group is sounding an alarm for help for the recycling industry amid high costs, particularly for energy.
In a press statement, the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) said its members across different facets of the recycling industry expressed concern at the recent World Recycling Convention about how high energy prices are affecting them.
According to the BIR, the problem isn’t just limited to Europe, which is facing dramatically higher natural gas and electricity prices as a result of economic punishments doled out between Russia and the West following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
During the convention, which was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, most of over 650 attending companies, many of them small- and medium-sized enterprises, “reported on the huge burden that sky-rocketing energy costs put on their operations, threatening their survival on the medium to long term,” according to the trade group’s statement. The reports came from plastics recycling companies, as well as those handling metals, paper, tires and electronics.
“BIR urges national governments and international legislators to enact immediate financial aid for the recycling industry to prevent significant long-term damage to a sector that plays a pivotal role in the global circular economy and the protection of the planet,” the statement reads.
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