IARC 2010

ICM AG
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10th International Automobile Recycling Congress
March 3 – 5, 2010
Basel, Switzerland

Foreword of IARC 2010Welcome to Basel!

On behalf of the International Steering Committee I welcome you to the 10th InternationalAutomobileCongress IARC in Basel.

The city of Basel – then Basilea – was already mentioned in 374 AD. After this it had arapid growth and became part of the Swiss confederation in 1501 as Kanton Basel. Todaylarge pharmaceutical and chemical industries like Roche, Novartis and Ciba have theirheadquarters in this beautiful city. Basel is also well-known for its culture and has forexample 41 museums of which Museum Tinguely is one.

A connection to the recycling world in general is the Basel Convention. The BaselConvention– the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and theirdisposal– entered into force on May 5, 1992 after being signed by 51 states. There hasbeen a lot of debate which is still going on about the definitions regarding recovery,recyclingand re-use. Although the convention declares that illegal hazardous wastetrafficis criminal, it contains no real enforcement. Exporting waste in a general sense is stillgoing on a large scale to third world countries to avoid high disposal costs.

As long as there are ways to avoid the high disposal costs the technology to processforexample ASR will develop slowly. Also the fact that the EU ELV directive is not implementedon a global scale has an impact on technological developments, trade, markets andwaste export.

The recent revisions of June 2008 and the national interpretation of the revised ELV directiveby the member states of the EU are also influencing the technological developmentand the investments in recycling plants and the development of the market for the generatedproducts. All this means that the dream “yes we can” of a level playing field fortechnology, processes and markets is still a goal to realize. The different market conditionswill make the export to economical more attractive regions an ever increasing optionalthough the Basel Convention is still supposed to be enforced.

As already mentioned in the foreword of 2009 stability is needed for the technologicaldevelopments, mature markets and an economical approach to ELV recycling. Continuouslychanging the EU rules for ELV recycling in combination with a poorly definedplayingfield are very difficult matters to deal with for the ELV recycling industry in general.

On topof all this are the present weak metal markets and the general economicoutlook as anextra challenge for the recycling industry to push forward.

I am looking forward to discuss the new and the old challenges and new businessopportunitiesin Basel.

Let us get some inspiration for a solution in the city of the birth of the “Basel Convention”.

Prof. Wijnand L. DalmijnChairman of the Steering CommitteeInternational Automobile Recycling CongressPaul FoxEGARA (European Group of AutomotiveRecycling Associations)ChairmanUnited Kingdom“The business of automotive recycling inEurope now and in 2020