Last week, ISRI President Robin Wiener, ISRI Chair Brian Henesey, ISRI Chair-Elect Colin Kelly, and Chief Economist Joe Pickard traveled to India to speak at the Material Recycling Association of India (MRAI) 2023 International Conference. The event had nearly 2,000 attendees including industry leaders from the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and around the world. The focus was on the growing recycled materials industry in India and the related global markets.
Robin Wiener image courtesy of ISRI.
“India is the 2nd largest export market for recycled material. Brian Henesey and I were pleased to be able to talk about a number of the initiatives led by ISRI to encourage innovation and help grow the markets for renewable resources in manufacturing,” said Wiener.
Wiener, Henesey, Kelly and Pickard also met with Indian and U.S. government officials during their trip. Imports and exports of recycled materials in India have seen tremendous growth — an estimated $3 billion of recycled material shipped to India last year. The Indian government is currently in the process of developing industry standards for their domestic recycling industry and ISRI’s Specifications are one of the foundations upon which the Indian Government is looking to for the development of their own standards. Discussions centered around the recently issued standard for Steel, as well as the standards currently under development for plastics and aluminum.
Along with the ISRI Specs, the ISRI playbook — A Common Language for the Recycled Materials Industry — was highly touted. Currently, it is being translated to multiple languages, including Hindi.
