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07 Sept 2025
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07 Sept 2025
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Kurt with the traditional cowbell award in Salzburg
The chief executive of KMK Metals Recycling, Tullamore and Kilbeggan, and President of the European Electronics Recyclers Association (EERA), Kurt Kyck was bestowed the iconic IERC 2024 Honorary Award At the International Electronics Recycling Congress in Salzburg recently.
Presenting the award, which is in the form of a large traditional cow bell, Jean Cox-Kearns described Kurt Kyck as a straight talker and a recognised leader who was receiving this award in recognition of a long and industrious career in the metals and WEEE recycling industry.
She gave the gathered crowd a run-down of his education and work history in Germany, London and Ireland and talked about KMK Metals Recycling, the metals and WEEE recycling business, based in Tullamore and Kilbeggan that he has been operating for the past 45 years.
Accepting the award, Kurt Kyck, said: “I am a little bit lost for words. It’s brilliant to be recognised like this. WEEE recycling is my passion. It’s not just my work. I would like to emphasise it is extremely necessary that the resources that are contained in the products we are consuming every day, are recovered.
“We have excellent smelters in Europe and excellent plastic recyclers and we have guys like me who go out and collect it. This is despite all kinds of adverse challenges, yet we still do it and we are bringing about the aspirations of Mr Pelligrini and the Commission by recovering these resources.
“The development of centres of excellence is how we are going to collect critical raw materials.
“We are going to have to take a step forward and nominate a company or enterprise to recover these resources and bring them to these centres of excellence so that the economies of scale of the recovery of critical raw materials can be met, regardless of price. By bringing the materials to one location we can achieve the economies of scale.”
Before leaving the stage with his cow bell, Kurt quipped that we would need to find a substantial cow to carry it.
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