Shredder Committee:

Figures back up pro-shredder argument

Brussels, 4 June 2013

The potentially highly-positive commercial impact of shredder use was underscored at the latest BIR Shredder Committee meeting in Shanghai.

Guest speaker Marion Andres Albuja Rivadeneira, General Manager of the Adelca steel mill in Ecuador, reviewed the many gains made by his company following a switch from a largely pressed & sheared and bundles scrap mix to an 85% shredded input. Productivity had almost doubled while yield had jumped from 85% to 92% - “a great success”, he declared.

According to BIR Shredder Committee Chairman Jens Hempel-Hansen of H.J. Hansen Recycling Industry A/S of Denmark, such figures were good to hear for an industry in which many believed that shredded scrap did not always attract an adequate premium.

The focus of the meeting then shifted to car recycling in China. Guest speaker Jianmin Liu, Chairman of the China National Resources Recycling Association ( CRRA ), predicted that as many as 14m end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) would arise annually in the domestic market by the year 2020. Currently, 533 certified facilities exist in China to handle ELV collection and dismantling, most of which are CRRA members.

The meeting concluded with an update from Manuel Burnand, Chairman of the European Shredder Group, a body of the European Ferrous Recovery & Recycling Federation (EFR), on work in the EU towards a best available techniques reference document (or BREF) for shredders, concerning more than 330 machines in 25 countries. Areas covered by the BREF include emissions to air and water as well as noise, vibration and energy efficiency. Next steps will include the circulation of the document within EFR’s Shredder Group for final edits prior to publication.

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