01 - The Evidence-Based Solutions to our Waste Management Crisis

In this episode, Volker Rehrmann, Executive Vice President and Head of TOMRA Recycling/Mining and Circular Economy, talks about the newest division at TOMRA, and how its approach to waste management can help us achieve the EU’s ambitious, but achievable green objectives.

TOMRA’s holistic approach to waste management (as highlighted in the white paper, Holistic Resource Systems), looks at three tried-and-tested recycling solutions: Deposit Return Schemes, Separate Collections, and Mixed Waste Sorting, and how integrating all three can help us accelerate the move towards a circular economy.

Listen to the episode below, or use your favourite platform (Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts)

Show Notes

• How TOMRA functions and has succeeded itself in Circular Economy sector? [1:42]
• The reason for introduction of Circular Economy Division in TOMRA. [3:49]
• Who are looking up to the European Union for the management of plastic wastes? [6:58]
• Waste hierarchy explained by Volker. [7:53]
• Three fundamentals leading to resource revolution as explained by Volker. [12:14]
• Ideal ways to deal with plastic wastes and CO₂ [15:24]
• What do developing countries need to learn in terms of proper waste management? [20:06]
• Volker´s message to Business, Government and Consumers in reference to Circular Economy. [24:16]
• Parting quote. [27:02]
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Transcript

Vanessa: Welcome to the first of our new podcast series `TOMRA Talks Circular´, where we explore how businesses, municipalities and governments are collaborating towards a Circular Economy. This new podcast series today, will explain the practicalities of transitioning business and government frameworks to Circular Economy practices. Bringing real life examples from the frontline circular leader TOMRA, and their guests will talk through the latest developments from groundbreaking research to state-of-the-art technologies. In this podcast, listeners will learn how TOMRA Circular Economy division is spearheading a whole new approach to waste management. I am Vanessa Lorenz, and our guess today is Dr. Volker Rehrmann, Executive Vice-President, who also heads up Circular Economy division at TOMRA. Volker, Welcome!

Volker: Thank You, Vanessa. Thank You for having me.

Vanessa: That´s a pleasure.

TOMRA has been in the business of circular waste management for a long time, for almost 50 years and it's the market leader, I believe in every region that it operates. So, in a nutshell, if you can be objective, what exactly does TOMRA do and what does it do particularly well?

Volker: Yes. TOMRA is nearly 50 years old. TOMRA was founded in 1972, and it was founded on the idea of developing an automatic solution for the return of refillable bottles. TOMRA has been in the business of you could say, circular economy for 50 years, we are not just jumping on this train. It's also the biggest part of our business, solutions for return of beverage container, typically in deposit systems. That is one part of TOMRA´s business, as I said the biggest part. The other parts are, sorting solutions, automatic sorting solutions for different types of materials typically, in waste streams in the recycling sector, where we sort different materials into clean pure fractions to you know, to allow them to be recyclable, and then we also have a business, where we use the same technologies for the sorting of food. Food that is automatically harvest and needs to be cleaned up by any foreign material or low-quality type of food. And, in all three sectors we are leading that is correct Vanessa.

Vanessa: Wow! and on top of that, you launched an entirely new division last year is that correct? `The Circular Economy Division´. It's putting you in touch with all sorts of new companies now as a result and every part of the supply chain as well. You're in touch with brand owners, you're in touch now with designers, so why are businesses actually turning to TOMRA at this time, do you think Volker? What are they wanting?

Volker: Yeah! As we have all have learned that, in contrast to previous years, where maybe the world was not so interested really in recycling solutions. In the past years there is a high interest in recycling solutions. We can talk for hours what is the reason for that, but there are some good reasons. It started with China closing the borders, not accepting the import of plastic waste anymore. On top of that consumers are genuinely interested in sustainable solutions. We see all the plastic in the ocean. So, there's a variety of reasons why this is a case, but it is a fact that recycling is really high on the agenda of everybody today, Governments, Businesses and Consumers. And what we see is that many people, Consumers but also Businesses, struggle the problem how to make recycling really work, in particularly for plastics, there are some other materials where it works very well but plastics recycling is not really working well, and big companies, big brand owners have approached us and asked you know, What can we do in order to use more recycled contents in our products? What do we need to do in order to design products better for recycling? So, they really want to make a difference, but they simply don't know how? And, we have seen that it is a significant problem where people from the value chain need to work together. So, that's why we established the Circular Economy division, where we really focus on Holistic Solutions. Here we really want to work on solutions for the problem of closing the loop for plastics which will require our solutions, but also many other solutions from other technology companies. But we feel that TOMRA is well positioned with our 50 years of experience in this business to help companies, to help consumers, also help governments developing solutions closing the loop of plastics.

Vanessa: So, you would say that circular economy is very high on a lot of people's agenda now. That's really gone up in the last what do you say five years? Two years?

Volker: Three to five years, Absolutely, Yes!

Vanessa: In Europe, closer to home, how realistic do you think everyone is getting in terms of meeting expectations for our ambitious green targets? For example, how realistic do you think is a Green Deal that's being put forward by the EU?

Volker: I think it is very realistic, and I have to say I have to give my you know, my strongest compliments to the EU. Nobody would have believed that they would have been able to come up with such ambitious targets. Also, in a very short timeframe. They managed to agree on those targets, I think it was within 24 months, which is kind of unheard of for the EU, and they came up with from the outside looks like very ambitious targets. But if we are honest and all of these targets are achievable, we know which solutions are out there in order to reach those targets. So, my view is complements to the EU to come up with ambitious targets, but targets that are definitely realistic and achievable.

Vanessa: Right. What about outside the EU? You`re hearing from a lot of companies in America or in Asia as well, that they're getting a lot of pressure put on them to step up the plate to get into the Circle Economy.

Volker: Absolutely! Absolutely! Consumers in other parts of the world are also worried about sustainability, about plastics in the ocean. Of course, it is more a problem right now of more developed countries. When you live in a poor country, you certainly have bigger problems than that. But the more developed countries in Asia, let's say Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia but also China which is the biggest producer of plastics and also plastic waste and North America, they are definitely also worried and they're really looking at the example of Europe. They're quite surprised that Europe dared to come up with those ambitious targets and they are carefully watching our progress.

Vanessa: Right. OK, interestingly, you have just coupled up with the independent UK consultant, Eunomia and you did this to examine a number of waste management practices around Europe. So the findings are out, it's White Paper, it's called a `Holistic Resource System´, it's just a view that, if you could just talk a little bit about why did you do this? What were you actually analyzing? and why at this point now did you decide to do this?

Volker: Yes. Let me start with saying that, we are a firm believer in the waste hierarchy. For those who don't know what the waste hierarchy is, the waste hierarchy tells you the first and most important thing you need to do is reduce waste. Uh, so we are firm believer in that. The next step in the hierarchy is if you cannot reduce it, then reuse materials. So, don't make products for just single use that you throw them away immediately and only then we come to the recycle, so the hierarchy clearly has Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. But it is also a fact that waste will not disappear overnight. Waste is a significant problem, and all projections say Waste, the waste volume globally will increase significantly over the years to come, and the problem was with plastics going into oceans will become worse year by year. So, we need to deal with our waste. Waste is an important problem, and we need solutions now. So, we said let's look at you know, what a proper waste management system needs to look like. A waste management system that will you know address the problem was waste management in the best possible way with everything we have learned so far, with a target to increase recycling to the, you know, highest level possible, again possible by means that had been demonstrated today and then we wanted to see you know, what would the so called best waste management system be able to achieve with regards to our climate crisis. So, with regards to reduction of CO₂ emissions. Because we think that the problem with waste management is completely underestimated. The contribution that a good waste management system can do towards reducing CO₂ emissions. It is actually big, where it's much man can do a lot. But what we hear in the public opinion today when we talk about CO₂ reduction is all about how do we produce energy, you know, it's about our transport system´s mobility, nobody talks about the proper waste management system and what recycling can continue here. So, it's something nobody has really done before there are some specific studies here and there, but we want to look in holistic view putting together the best practice that is available today and that's the beauty of you know, as a market leader like TOMRA we have seen so many systems work well or working not so well. So, that's why we said, let's put together our knowledge and ask Eunomia to do some, case studies and try to model what happens if we apply the best possible solutions we have today on a global scale. So, solutions that we don't need develop that are available now if we apply them all over the world. What would then the contribution of waste management be when it comes to global CO₂ emission reduction and the results are amazing because the modeling from Eunomia showed that you know, we can save up to 2.76 billion tons of CO₂. If we would apply best practice today on a global scale. And I think that is absolutely amazing.

Vanessa: And obviously, if this was implemented more widely you guys would be leading the resource revolution, wouldn't you? Because you know, this is not being done at the moment, but we've all got a lot of opportunity to make that happen.

Volker: Thank you for saying that Vanessa, because I probably forgot to mention, TOMRA´s vision, our official vision is leading the resource revolution.

Vanessa: Right! and What's fascinating is that in many many years you've been coming up with hundreds of innovations and yet this study boils it down to three, three techniques which you know helped all these years of being in the industry. It's remarkably simple but can you tell us a little bit more about that? What are these three techniques?

Volker: First of all, let me say you know of course it sounds simple, but it is not simple, I mean when you come out with such a site study and the results you also need to make the message simple. Of Course the devil is in the detail and there is a lot of work behind it. But it is true, we found that three fundamental systems are necessary in order to collect as many material possible to make it available for the site. And the three systems are, first of all `Deposit System´. A deposit system for beverage contained is unmatched in terms of its performance, especially when it comes to the return rate. Now it's quite logical when you put it in deposit on a packaging object it gets a value, and if you throw it away somebody else will pick it up so, the deposit systems have an extremely high return rate. So, countries like Germany, we're talking about 95 to 98% return rate. This is not possible with any other solution, so the deposit systems have really proved their value over the years in many countries in this world. And the high return rate is extremely important, because when you want to close the loop, the higher the return rate the more cycles you can do with one bottle. So actually with 100 bottles, with a high return rate, you can produce several hundred, five/six hundred new bottles out of that which sounds non-intuitive at the beginning but that's the amazing part even think about because you're doing many cycles with it, and if you want to do many cycles a very high collection rate is important and deposit systems are unbeatable when it comes to the return rate.

The second part of it is that a `separate collection´ of certain types of material is important in order to allow high recycling rates for these types of materials. Examples for that are, well established systems like glass, paper and most importantly the so-called wet waste, organic waste. Because if you collect those material groups separately you can really allow recycling of these materials.

Vanessa: Right.

Volker: If paper gets contaminated with organics, it get much more difficult so, a separate collection is really very important for some of those materials. Interestingly enough, not necessarily for plastics what our studies showed, and that brings me to the third element, that is the so-called Mixed Waste Sorting. Today, the residual waste is untouched in every country in this world. The residual waste is untreated and normally ends up in either landfills or incineration plant.

Vanessa: Just to cut in there, when you say residual waste it's the leftovers, it's things that are not caught in separation. It's not in order in deposits, it's leftovers.

Volker: Exactly, it's leftovers, that that you put into your, some call it `Municipal Solid Waste´. It's a residual waste typically craping in many households where you put all the reminings that where there's no separate collections, and this is a rich source of material that is lost today and we have found that if you really want to achieve high recycling rates, you need to tap into this. You need to do Mixed waste sorting; you need to recover all the valuable material that is in there before you put it on landfills or incineration. And the studies showed when it comes to plastics, you have a double effect in there because, if you burn plastics in incineration plants, that's when you release the embodied energy in plastics. Basically, it's like burning oil, so you release CO₂. If you in fact, take these plastics and make it available for recycling, you replace virgin material that and it saves CO₂ there, so you save CO₂ two times. First by not burning it and, secondly by replacing virgin materials so no energy intensive production testing, and the results are amazing.

Vanessa: So, these, so this sort of Holistic Resource System is really ideal for countries that really don't have an already in place system, that's working for them. Would you say?

Volker: Absolutely! any new countries that have already established well-functioning separate collection system they, no need to change it. But countries that are planning to you know, like countries in Eastern Europe, for example that have no established system they should go directly to Mixed Waste Sorting.

Vanessa: Fantastic. OK that's good to know. In terms of the mix waste sorting, you said before that this all should become an investment priority. What do you mean by that exactly? Who are you aiming that message at? May be aiming at the Businesses or Government or Both?

Volker: It´s kind of both, but Businesses would not invest into this. It's towards governments, the results are so overwhelming that show you, you know plastic should not be burned in incinerators. And if you look at Europe, I mean we have a price for CO₂ emissions, and it is very likely that over the next decade the prices for that will increase significantly. There is also a financial incentive to take out plastics and other good recyclable material before we burn it in incinerators. So, we think, that is something the world needs to focus on, and the world means, it probably needs some kind of legislative support in order to go into that direction. But we have also discussed with some first incinerator companies and we were surprised that they are basically all very positive to that. You know in the past there was a kind of competition between either you recycle, or you burn it in incinerator. But the incinerator industry is also now embracing the concept of circular economy and they see the value of recovering the valuable material out of the material before you burn the residual material, where you really cannot do something good and focus on that one. that would also mean if you think a little bit long term, that in the future there will be less material that needs to be incinerated, so in our view there is no need for new incinerators, if we take out materials in front of incinerators, recover the value with you there is no need to build and in our view also there should not be any units incinerator build without the presorting stage in front of you.

Vanessa: And of course, you need an awful lot of extremely clever technology to sort through everything in the mixed waste section of things, right? I mean we've had to be fairly state-of- the- art.

Volker: Right. And that is also the reason why this is not so established. Just a few years ago it would not have been possible to do the sorting. But technology has developed to a level, that today you can't do an excellent mixed waste sorting and end up with very good clean fractions of material, even out of mixed waste. And we have demonstrated that, that is one of the areas we have focused on, in the past years. And we have demonstrated that in a few demonstration plants in countries like Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. To mention those countries have opened up for some of these projects and in the meantime, I think we realized 10 or so of these plants that show very impressive results.

Vanessa: All this said, what does TOMRA regard as the biggest hurdles affecting how the world manages its waste and what's your message in response to that?

Volker: This is not so easy to answer, because here we have to distinguish between, let's say that developed world and the developing world. Let me start with the developing world. Countries in the developing world, have no proper waste management system in place. Sometimes we cannot believe it, but there is no waste collection service. They still throw lot of their waste on open dumps and burn it on open dumps like we used to do it 100 years ago. So in the developing countries, the biggest hurdle is really that they need to implement proper waste management system. So, to start with, waste needs to be collected. If you don't collect the waste from households or industries, there's no chance you can ever come to a high recycling rate in this country. This part of the world my message would be, `Invest into a proper waste management system´. And you can learn a lot from other countries in the world how to do, it costs some money yes, for sure but it's definitely worth it for your environment and also for overall society. When we talk about the developed world, what is the biggest hurdle here is certainly that, recycling in some parts also cost some money, and recycling is not in itself a business, the way it is structured today. The production of virgin plastics, virgin material is very cheap, and the oil price is low and for some years now the oil prices is relatively low. So, if you leave it to the free market recycled plastics in some areas has a problem. So, somebody would have to pay for it. The good news is that there are already some material for example, PET bottles, the prices for recycled PET material of the highest quality in the past years has been significantly higher than the price of virgin materials. Who would have ever believed this? which basically means brand owners are willing to pay premium for good quality recycled materials. for other materials, this is not yet the case and we need some kind of financial incentives so that recycling is also competitive to very low virgin plastic prices, and there are various elements under discussion again referring to the EU Green Deal elements like plastics tax, which would put tax on virgin plastics material which then automatically would make recycled plastics more competitive price wise.

Vanessa: Is that being considered?

Volker: This is already decided by the European Union. So, every country would has to pay from this year on, a plastic tax. what is not clear is in every country is free to decide how clear. So, a country could say OK I just pay it out of my budget. But the expectation is that most countries will try to transfer this text then to the virgin plastic producers, and in some countries is already decided. UK, they have decided on the plastic tax. There is a tax of 240 Pounds kept on, which will really give recycled plastics the big boost, because this will close again the cost gap. Countries like Italy and Spain have decided on this and I'm pretty confident that many other countries like Germany, France that's currently under discussion move forward with the plastics tax on virgin plastics. There are other you know, legislative measures like mandatory recycled content, which is already decided for PET in the single use plastics directives. The EU has decided that from 2025, on 25% of all PET beverage bottles need to be made out of recycled plastics. So those elements will definitely support the development of more infrastructure for plastic recycling. And I'm personally very very confident, because the world once it need this to happen for various reasons and the climate crisis being one of the most important ones, the world needs this I'm very confident that the next 10 years we will see a big boom in plastic recycling.

Vanessa: If you could deliver one message to Business, Governments And Consumers, about what they must do now, what would you say?

Volker: This is a very generic question, if in as you ask this, I would say `Peace on Earth´. But we are talking about Circular Economy let me you know, refer here more to circular economy and the message is of course, a different one, depending you know, whether your business, government or consumer.

My message to business would be, make all the packaging products you bring into the market. Make them recyclable from the beginning. That’s where it all starts, it’s a key message, most businesses have understood this, but many still struggle with that. We don't need multi materials, as an example. Don't design for us static purposes or for cost design your products for recyclability. And secondly, to businesses, increase the recycled content in your product as much as possible.

My wish or my message to governments would be support recycling with a few legislative measures, we don't need lot, and the EU is already doing it. As I just mentioned, Plastics tax and mandatory recycled content they will already do it. So, EU is really fantastic what they have come up with. You cannot leave this to the free market, you need some kind of directions here, and I'm very happy with what EU is doing that would give a message to all other government in this world.

My message to the consumers is, as a consumer you have the power and the only reason why many bigger companies brand owners and also producers of virgin plastics are turning to recycling is because of the pressure from consumers. The consumers of today, they want companies, the brands they buy, they want them to work sustainable and they warn these companies to not destroy the world as they have been doing it and I think this consumer push is as strong as it has never been before. So, continue with that, Dear consumers, Don't only buy what is cheapest, but Buy what is best for environment, What is best for society, Buy those brands who have a high recycled content developments. Support those brands who really are serious about a transition to a Circular Economy. And consumer have a very good understanding, if companies are just greenwashing, because we see many companies about that, or are you really genuinely interested in the transition towards a circular economy. So, consumers you have big power, you know support those companies.

Vanessa: Volker, Thank you. It's been a real pleasure to hear your insights today. The next thing with TOMRA Talks Circular will be talking beyond this white paper and will be hearing from Oliver Lambertz, about a waste management model in Norway, whose Holistic Resource System which you talked about today is reaping extraordinary results. So, in the meantime feel free to contact us at tomra.com. And lastly, I'll quote just a quote from the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison he said recently that, “for every 10,000 tons of waste sent to landfill, 2.8 direct jobs are created, but if we recycle the same amount of waste 9.2 direct jobs are created”. So, circular economy it's a `win win´ for everybody. I'll leave it there Thank You Volker! Bye for now.

Volker: Thank you Vanessa. Bye.