Tom Wilfer

German recovered paper prices continue to climb steeply in April. After prices for mass grades jumped by a double-digit sum in March, as expected, market players now expect even larger hikes to surface in April. Prices for mixed paper and supermarket paper and board might rise by up to €20/t or even more, with...

Steelmaker Salzgitter AG plans to build a new large-scale shredder to secure its supply of high-quality scrap for "green steel" production. The company announced last week it would be investing around €30m to install the shredder plant at its integrated site in Salzgitter, in the German state of Lower Saxony....

The sale of single-use e-cigarettes will be prohibited as of 1 January 2025 in Belgium, the country’s health minister Frank Vandenbroucke announced. The EU Commission has approved this ban. Belgium will therefore be the first EU member state to put an end to the sale of disposable e-cigarettes, also known as vapes,...

Prices for ordinary grades are rising considerably on the German recovered paper market at present. Mark-ups in the low double-digit euro range are expected for mixed paper and supermarket paper and board in March. An even higher increase is expected for sorted graphic paper for deinking. The upward trend for these...

The EU institutions have reached a final agreement on the amendment of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. The latest amendments to the Directive clarify who is to pay management costs for older photovoltaic panels. The changes were needed to bring the Directive into line with a 2022 ruling...

Calls for a ban on the sale of single-use e-cigarettes are growing louder. In a recent joint statement, eight European waste management and recycling associations pushed for a Europe-wide complete ban on disposable vapes to be imposed by the end of the year. In addition to the umbrella associations EuRIC and FEAD, the...

The Reconomy Group has announced the takeover of Germany's Sudamin Rohstoff GmbH. Through the acquisition of the Duisburg-based company, the British waste management group intends to expand its service offering for the collection and recovery of metal-bearing residues from the steel industry and continue its...

The British recovered paper industry continues to face weak demand and low collection volumes as well as the ongoing shipping crisis in February. However, all the material is still moving....

Austria's Federal Competition Authority (BWB) has released new information about its investigation of an alleged cartel in the waste management sector last week. According to the BWB, the suspected anti-competitive behaviour is now believed to have gone on for nearly 20 years. The first company to be named in...

Tomra has acquired a stake in AI specialist Poly Perception. The sorting technology and reverse vending machine (RVM) company announced last week that it is acquiring a 25 per cent holding in the Belgian start-up. Founded not quite four years ago, Poly Perception offers AI-based waste flow monitoring. Tomra has been...