RECYCLED RAW MATERIALS
The ugly side to buying beautiful products
Simply extracting more and more raw materials from the ground, such as iron ore, coal and crude oil, is most certainly not the answer. It’s high time that we wake up and recognise that it is essential to systematically use recycled raw materials.
So what exactly are recycled raw materials?
Recycled raw materials are raw materials that have not been extracted from nature – such as ore and crude oil – but have instead been recovered from old products. For example, plastics and metals from end-of-life vehicles. Recycled raw materials are produced by separating the different kinds of recyclables according to type and then processing them so they can be returned to production cycles for reuse. This is carried out in plants that have been specially developed for this work and that use a variety of technologies depending on which type of recycled raw material needs to be produced. In principle, every raw material that has been extracted from nature and been used to make a product can be transformed into a recycled raw material. The efforts required to do this, however, differ from material to material as well as from source to source. It is, for example, easier to recover iron from old railway tracks than it is to recover individual kinds of plastic from complex composite systems.
One way to promote the production of sustainable recycled raw materials is to systematically implement the principles of ecodesign
An image that makes us sit up. And not just because it’s a chair
It makes a huge difference whether an item, such as a plastic chair, is made of recycled plastic pellets or using virgin crude oil. The former conserves natural resources and cuts carbon emissions. The opposite is most certainly true for the latter. Surely there’s no better argument for recycled raw materials!
Which is why recycled raw materials are the future
There really is no alternative to recycled raw materials. A quick look at the amount of raw materials currently being consumed by industrial countries really drives this point home. What’s more, with the world’s population growing exponentially and the global per capita consumption of raw materials steadily increasing, there is no getting around the fact that the way we are currently behaving means we are effectively heading straight towards a brick wall. Without recycling, our natural resources will continue to be used at an ever faster rate and supplies will gradually run out. We have no choice but to turn to recycled raw materials. It must become standard practice to use recycled raw materials in products and everyone – from manufacturers, to consumers, all the way through to the recycling sector – must promote and support this development.
If all of the countries around the world were to consume as many raw materials as Germany, then we would need almost 2.7 planet earths to cover their needs
The advantages of recycled raw materials
Recycled raw materials offer a whole number of benefits. Besides the obvious ones – that they make good business sense and are better for the environment – these also include social and ethical aspects. Especially if the subject of recycled raw materials is seen globally and in its entirety.
Protecting nature
Extracting raw materials from nature inevitably leads to land consumption. This in turn damages and harms the environment. A problem that simply doesn’t exist with recycled raw materials. The fact that they are considerably more cost effective further underlines this advantage. Just one example: copper produced from old electrical appliances requires 25 times less material than making copper from virgin copper ore.
Curbing climate change
Manufacturing products from virgin raw materials is extremely energy intensive, which means these processes also generate high volumes of carbon emissions. This is because, for the most part, large quantities of fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas) are needed to extract them from the ground. Something that does not apply to recycled raw materials.
Promoting social responsibility
Many of the raw materials we use are mined in developing or emerging countries. Often in precarious conditions. And the ones that suffer the most here are the weakest in society. They are the ones that must carry out this work – more often than not for a pittance and using processes that are dangerous and harmful to their health. Industries, which use more recycled raw materials, help to prevent precarious working conditions, exploitation and even child labour.
Reducing dependency on imports
Many raw materials come from countries that are politically unstable. The volatility caused by such an environment can lead to industrial businesses having to face supply bottlenecks and, consequently, higher costs. Moreover, there will inevitably be price increases as raw materials become ever scarcer. Risks that can be reduced if more recycled raw materials are used.
Safeguarding industrial locations in Europe
As recycled raw materials do not have to be imported, they enable German and other European industrial sites to become more self-sufficient and so ensure they remain competitive. This, in turn, helps to secure jobs. What’s more: expanding the recycling sector will create new jobs as well.
REMONDIS has a website dedicated entirely to the subject of recycled raw materials.
A recycled raw material is a high-quality raw material
If there is one thing recycled raw materials do not have, it is a problem with their quality. We have stringent environmental and quality standards in place when we produce our recycled raw materials and these standards are often higher than those required for virgin raw materials. These are not, therefore, ‘second-best’ or of a lower quality but the same raw material that, depending on the material stream, can be recovered in the same quality and reused again and again. This is especially true today for metals (e.g. iron, aluminium and copper), natural products (organic materials) and water. No matter which material it may involve, REMONDIS has comprehensive expertise of recovering and recycling raw materials thanks to its many innovations and patents.
If downcycling is unavoidable, then preferably as a cascade
Materials that are downcycled also meet the highest requirements no matter what they are used for during the different stages of their life cycle. This is guaranteed as the recycling sector is able to assess the quality of the incoming materials and produce bespoke recycled raw materials using formulas that meet their customers’ specific industrial applications. This is referred to as cascade use. It is, for example, no problem to recycle plastic several times and use it to make different products each time. To begin with, it is a high-quality children’s toy and then, later on, versatile plastic film.
The same is true for old paper. Paper has a number of life cycles – from being a glossy catalogue, to becoming a newspaper, to being used to make kitchen roll. It is both our mission and our task to continuously develop innovations and further advance technologies to make sure that the quality of the recovered raw materials is kept as high as possible.
What raw materials are recovered? How is this done? We’ve answered these questions. With the 12+ explanatory films on our website dedicated to REMONDIS’ Lippe Plant.
Recycled raw materials need innovations
In principle – from a technological point of view – practically everything can be recycled. Different conditions, however, make it harder or easier to recycle materials. Recovering the individual components of a complex composite material is, for example, time-consuming and expensive as they first have to be separated from each other. Large investments have to be made in technologies and plants to be able to produce recycled raw materials. If there are not enough customers willing to buy recycled raw materials, then it might mean that it is simply not profitable to recycle certain products and this work is not carried out. This may be a shame for the environment; it is, however, an economic reality. All the more reason, therefore, for setting up political framework conditions to counteract this dilemma. For example, by creating subsidy programmes to make it more worthwhile for companies to invest in recycling technologies.
The call for minimum recycled content
At the moment, 85% of the materials used to manufacture products in Germany are based on virgin raw materials. A figure that is much too high as far as sustainability is concerned. REMONDIS has calculated that CO2 emissions could be reduced by 60 million tonnes simply by doubling the volumes of recycled raw materials used by German industrial businesses from the current low figure of 15% to 30% (a figure that could certainly also be improved on). As a comparison: for the transport sector to achieve a similarly impressive result, the number of planes, vehicles, ships and trains being used would have to be reduced by one third. The only way to increase the use of recyclates, however, is to have recycled content mandates. This means that companies would be obliged by law to use a minimum amount of recycled raw materials when manufacturing products and, in particular, packaging. Only then can recycled raw materials really become competitive and make a greater contribution towards conserving our planet’s reserves of raw materials.
Minimum recycled content is just one of the solutions that we are calling for to make industry and the economy more sustainable. Further details can be found on our website we-are-climate-action.com
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