As Christmas and the new year get closer, we have decided to take this opportunity to reflect on 2022 and look back at everything we achieved in our first full year.

2022 is the WasteTrade’s first full calendar year, and to say it has been an eventful one would be an understatement. At the beginning of the year, we finalised putting together the core WasteTrade team. All facets of this business are led by highly experienced experts, which is why we have been able to stay at the cutting edge of the industry.

Our newly completed team started the year off by immediately setting to work on overhauling the previous version of WasteTrade to develop our new and updated website. The new version of WasteTrade is now far more efficient, reliable and user-friendly than its predecessor; the platform is much faster and easier to navigate, making for the best user experience in the industry.

In June of this year, we had the official launch of WasteTrade at the PRSE Amsterdam tradeshow, where we were overwhelmed by how positively we were received. Given the size and prevalence of many of the other companies exhibiting, we were thrilled to learn from the event organisers that we were in the top 5% busiest stands at the show. We could not have hoped for a better launch, and it made the more than one year of work it took to get us there feel worth it.

We took WasteTrade to many other tradeshows this year, including Plastics Live, RWM and K Show. WasteTrade also exhibited at the Big Sustainability Expo, where were nominated and shortlisted as a finalist for the ‘Waste’ award. This award was for businesses and projects at the cutting edge of innovation in the waste industry; it was particularly rewarding for us to receive this recognition from other leaders in the sustainability space, and to learn that there is meaningful support out there for what we are trying to achieve.

Throughout the year, we have continued development on the ThinkCarbon project; we have been working closely alongside our university partners and advisory firms to create what will be one of the most powerful tools for eliminating unnecessary carbon emissions. The launch for ThinkCarbon will be in 2023 and will initially run exclusively on WasteTrade, making our marketplace the most carbon-efficient waste platform in the industry.

However, this is not the limit for the ThinkCarbon project. The scope for ThinkCarbon is truly boundless, and this tool has the potential to be implemented across all global supply chains. ThinkCarbon has the power to be the driving force behind one of the greatest reductions in global carbon emissions we have ever seen.

Towards the end of the year, we have also been working tirelessly on the development of our new haulage portal. Through this portal, the booking and management of haulage for the materials sold on WasteTrade will become much more efficient. This new feature on WasteTrade will reduce the time it takes to organise transportation for the deals agreed on the platform, saving the buyers and sellers both time and money. The new haulage platform will go live in Q1 of 2023.

2022 has been a fantastic year for WasteTrade; we have had our share of ups and downs, but we are immensely proud of how far we have come. Our marketplace has the potential to become one of the most significant accelerators towards a fully circular global economy, which is the end goal that keeps pushing us forward.

We are beyond excited for what 2023 has waiting for us. Until then, we would like to wish a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to everyone who is on this journey with us to combat climate change by tackling pollution, carbon emissions and the wasteful handling of resources.