Recycling from waste to pure raw material in a certified way allows for better environmental performance while helping people and companies become more sustainable. By carefully selecting and shorting materials, extracting the highest feasible volume of new row material for every tonne of waste is possible.
Certification allows for efforts towards a circular port economy to be acknowledged. Foremost, certification provides all parties with certainty and a level playing field to determine when a secondary raw material should no longer be considered as ‘waste’ but as ‘end-of-waste’. One of the barriers faced by operators who want to use secondary raw materials is uncertainty about their quality. Given the absence of standards to ascertain impurity levels or suitability for recycling, certification increases trust in secondary raw and recycled materials, and helps support the market.
One such example exists in the Netherlands, where a metal recycling company transforms waste generated in the port of Rotterdam and provides an “End-of-Waste” (EoW) certificate. The certificate allows manufacturers to offer recycled materials such as iron, steel, and aluminum as pure raw materials. This recycled material can be used for the production process of new metals. Using recycled material instead of virgin materials not only solves energy but also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, including CO2. Recycling metals also reduces other adverse environmental issues associated with extracting new raw materials from the earth. The certificate offers buyers and sellers of recycled materials the assurance that metal waste has been processed and offered sustainably and responsibly. Working this way favors the commitment to a sustainable and circular economy with the goal of zero emissions, as it lowers the use of raw materials, energy, and costs.