Recycling industries in the Netherlands, 1995-2001
Recycling companies produce secondary raw materials from waste and residue. Profitability has stabilised in recent years, whereas returns have more than doubled since 1995.
| 1995 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | ||
| Number of companies | 114 | 151 | 148 | 161 | 146 | |
| Employees | 1 616 | 2 682 | 2 994 | 2 779 | 2 822 | |
| EUR million | ||||||
| Investments | 25 | 55 | 58 | 58 | 54 | |
| Revenue | 326 | 516 | 654 | 749 | 827 | |
| among which | from collection of waste and residues | 67 | 152 | 162 | 153 | 193 |
| from the sale of reused waste products | 234 | 332 | 445 | 546 | 572 | |
| Result before tax | 15 | 10 | 13 | 32 | 41 | |
| % | ||||||
| Profitability1) | 5 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | |
| Source: CBS (2003). | CBS/EDC/May03/0396 | |||||
| 1) Result before tax as a percentage of revenue. | ||||||
Definition of 'recycling industries'
Recycling companies produce secondary raw materials from waste and residue. Their activities include shredding vehicles, demolition, and grinding waste rubber and plastics. The sale of the recoverable resources generates approximately two-thirds of the total revenue within the sector. The balance of the proceeds comes mainly from payments made by parties disposing of waste and residue.
Specialised activities in the area of the collection, processing, trading and preparation for reuse of waste (including mixed waste), have been included in three places in the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) of Statistics Netherlands:
- recycling industries (SIC-code 37);
- wholesale trade in waste and scrap (SIC-code 5157);
- environmental services (SIC-code 9000).
In practice, private environmental services companies concentrate primarily on the collection and treatment of waste that, as a whole, has virtually no scrap value.
