In 2023 the American Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (AISR) decreed that there’s no longer such a thing as scrap. Henceforth it would be known as recycled steel.

The 14th edition of ‘World Steel Recycling in Figures’ published by the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) Ferrous Division followed their lead by replacing all use of the term ‘steel scrap’ with the new term. According to the BIR, “in this era of communication, the aim of this move is to resonate even more effectively with the public and with policy-makers”. And in April 2024 the AISR renamed and rebranded themselves as the ‘Recycled Materials Association’.

Scrap, it is true, is a tricky term to define – see our post on ‘What is Scrap?‘ for more on this topic. But if you are going to change a term, surely the one thing you should not do is change it for another term that is already widely used in the same industry, and by the public, but means something different?

To be clear, steel scrap is not the same thing as recycled steel. Recycled steel is steel that has been recycled to make new steel. Scrap is a material that has been recovered, prior to being recycled to make new steel.

Similarly, recycled paper is paper made out of old paper that has been recycled. It is not the paper in your waste paper (trash) basket, yet to be recycled. And recycled glass is glass that has been made out of old glass.

There’s even an international standard for this. ISO 14021: 2016 Environmental labels and declarations — Self-declared environmental claims (Type II environmental labelling) specifies that ‘recycled material’ is: Material that has been reprocessed from recovered [reclaimed] material by means of a manufacturing process and made into a final product or into a component for incorporation into a product. Scrap is recovered or reclaimed material, it is not recycled material.

And yes, this matters. There is enough confusion and confusing use of terminology in the world of scrap iron and steel, and recycling, already. Rename scrap, and we need to rename different categories of scrap: post-consumer scrap becomes ‘post-consumer recycled steel’. ‘Recycled steel’ could be scrap that is actually 100% primary steel. Steel with 50% recycled content would become 100% recycled steel the moment it is recovered for recycling. Every reference in every future analysis, study or report will have to be checked to try to work out whether its use of the term ‘recycled steel’ refers to material collected for (potential) recycling, or to steel that has actually been recycled.

Using the term ‘recycled’ to refer to material that has not been recycled is not only confusing, it is misleading. If the AISR was ashamed of the word ‘scrap’, could it not have renamed itself the ‘Materials Recycling Association’?

In this era of communication, it can only be hoped that the BIR reverts to using the perfectly decent word ‘scrap’ as soon as possible.