Wido van den Bosch: The Dutch King of Clean

Wido van den Bosch is serious about cleaning things up. We find out more about the man behind Brink Industrial, his international partnership in circular manufacturing with Integra Systems, and his progressive take on circularity and sustainability. 

Wido van den Bosch

It all began for Wido van den Bosch with a career in law before he made the switch from the courtroom to the boardroom. And then to sorting waste. He didn’t need to wait long for his first buy-and-build opportunity to present itself when, on the verge of collapse, Dutch manufacturer Brink approached him.  

“I knew the Brink family, because I’d purchased one of their companies [as part of a group I worked for],” he explains. “They were looking for a new director, I was looking for a company and I wanted to do a management buy-in, so I bought almost half of the shares in 2013.”

With the purchase of Brink Industrial, Wido also acquired Lune – designers, developers and producers of indoor and outdoor waste separation systems. The 10 years under his stewardship—combined with the commitment of the Netherlands’ government to reducing waste through circularity in design and manufacturing—has seen Brink Industrial become a Dutch manufacturing success story with the company’s reach expanding internationally. 

One of those expansion territories is Australia where, in 2020, Melbourne’s Integra Systems was chosen to manufacture and sell Lune’s waste separation bin collection in Australia under a ground-breaking digital licensing agreement. 

In terms of circularity, how was the Netherlands positioned when the relationship between Lune and Brink came into being?

Wido van den Bosch (WvdB): “In 2013, the Dutch government introduced a policy called From Waste to Asset, which eventually became the basis of circularity policy not just in Holland but across Europe.”

“There are multiple ways to look at recycling. Some people say the best thing is to put everything in one bin and then separate it in a factory – that's separation afterward. From Waste to Asset, instead, recognised it was important to start reducing waste by targeting it at the source, and the source in this case was the waste bin. That made people aware of the need to separate waste by putting it in separate bins. That was perfect to me.”

“In Holland, we have what we call ‘farmer’s wisdom’ – the saying that ‘If you keep doing the same, then you keep getting the same’ kept coming to my mind. I knew I had to try something different because my company was close to going bust. I thought, this policy is a good opportunity for me to move into sustainability and circularity, and be first to market with bins that supported separation at the source. I decided to focus on that because I strongly believe you have to do something, not just talk about it. I said to myself, ‘I have a production company and we have to do something’.”

“There were a lot of networking organisations around at the time and, when Holland was starting its focus on circularity in 2013, the government would hold workshops with small groups. So I learned about the policy and circularity, and I started implementing it. From there, things really took off.”

What are some of the important principles that inform design at Lune and Brink?

WvdB: “The most important part of Lune is the design because I strongly believe the waste bin should be part of the furniture in your office. Most offices these days are pretty fancy offices, and your waste bin doesn’t have to look plastic and ugly. The main principle behind Lune is that it has to look nice.”

“The second part is that it has to be functional. As a user, It should be easy to use and, for the cleaning person that empties the bin, it should be ergonomic – fast and easy to empty, so they spend as little time as possible emptying it.”

“Another design principle is what’s called circularity by design. It’s the idea that, if you design a product, the product itself should last as long as possible for its purpose. Apart from the aesthetics, you start with a design that can be repaired, or parts that can be replaced. Often the design is modular because, if one part is broken, then you only have to replace that part and not the entire bin. If the product is meant as a waste bin, we should do everything to make sure it has a second or third life and, if nothing else is possible, then it should be recycled.”

“You also want to avoid wasting the added value in the product. It’s not only the value of the material, like steel, but also the value of the work and the energy that has been put into the manufacturing of the product. I have a simple example –– can you see my cup? [Wido holds a reusable coffee cup up to his screen]. The cup has a value of €20 [$A32]. There is €5 euros of steel in it, so it has €15 of added value. If I recycle my cup, then I throw away the €15. So, I want to use that €15 as long as possible. If my handle is broken, I only need to replace the handle, not the entire cup.”

What are some of the motivations for having a presence in Australia?

WvdB: “When COVID began in 2020, I was looking to expand the business and set up new initiatives. I wanted to start exporting, but exporting waste bins isn’t ideal from a sustainability point of view because you are mainly exporting air.”

“China was the obvious choice, but I was afraid that they would copy the design instead of using the patented product. When I thought about Australia, it made a bit more sense; it's a very big island and Australia has a waste problem. I also saw that there was an outbound trade mission from the Dutch government in Australia. So I got in contact with the Dutch Embassy and they helped me. They confirmed what I was thinking; that Australia was working towards a circular economy and that waste was an issue. I started looking for a similar company to Brink that could manufacture and sell the bins, and that’s when the Embassy put me in contact with Integra Systems.”

“We clicked with Erika and Paul immediately. Integra has similar values, similar ideas, a similar production facility to Brink – a perfect match. So, I explained what I've done, and they investigated the local market and said the Lune bins would be a perfect fit for them as an addition to their production. And from there, we signed a cooperation agreement, and now they’re making and selling the bins under a licence model, and we’re supporting them in the setup of Lune in Australia.”

Are there any similarities you can see between the Australian market now and the Dutch market at the time you acquired Lune?

WvdB: “I think Australia is where the Netherlands was around 2014 and 2015. Australia has started looking seriously at circularity; you’re seeing that being so dependent on Asian markets isn’t good and you want to be self-sustaining. You no longer want to export waste and you’re looking for a solution for getting rid of your waste without putting it in the ground.”

“I think with COVID and now the energy crisis, Australia is realising the need to build their internal market, so you’re at the starting point. But, I believe, because of all these crises, development will go faster in Australia. Holland took 10 years to come to this point, and I think that Australia will do it in four or five years.”

“You’ll also be helped by technology because it’s much further advanced than it was back in 2013. People nowadays are taking sustainability much more seriously than in the past.”

What insights do you and Brink bring to the table to help support and educate Australians about becoming better at designing out waste? 

WvdB: “I think people should be aware of what they throw away, and that it is no longer possible to have a take/make/waste economy—especially in Australia.”

“Because you’re an island, you have, of course, a lot of natural resources, but you don't have the natural resources to make everything and you have to import a lot [of goods and materials for manufacturing]. Once it is in your country, you use it and, if you discard it, it goes to a landfill. So, what you are doing is polluting the earth. People should be aware of what they're doing, and that there is a solution.”

“The solution is very interesting. In Holland, we started with a scheme where, if you separated paper, collection was free. If you separated glass, it was free; if you separated plastics, it was free. Your garden waste or your food waste, if you separated it, it was free. But if you just put everything in one bin, then you paid a lot for collection. So, people were made aware by paying for it if they didn’t separate it. And that worked like crazy!”

“To give you an example, we have a four-bin system at my home. I pay for one bin that's general waste, and the other three are free. I only put the general waste bin out on the street twice a year, and that will cost me €20 ($A32) or something. So, per bin, it is €10 ($A16) because I separate it. I think getting people to pay for it is the best solution.”

What can Australians do to start developing a ‘separation at the source’ mentality?

WvdB: When we started, the first customers I had were the government and the top 500 companies in Holland. They were prepared to put the Lune bins in their companies and to show the world they were serious about sustainability.”

“For instance, at Shell, their headquarters were in Holland at the time, and we said, ‘Put the waste bins at your reception desk so everybody that comes in sees you are serious about separating waste’. And it worked.”

“I don't know if it's the same in Australia, but listed companies in Holland are obliged to have a paragraph in their annual reports about what they’re doing to become more sustainable under rules about Environmental, Social and Governance [editor’s note: Australian businesses are not obligated to disclose their ESG performance in their annual reports, but there is a push to make it compulsory for ASX listed companies]. I discovered, if you say something about waste separating, then that would be sufficient. So, I visited all those companies and said, ‘Okay, you have an ESG problem, I have the solution for you.”  

“Of course, there is a little bit of help from the government, but businesses need to show that, as a company, they are serious. Companies who are serious about sustainability also become more attractive to potential employees. Young people want to work with companies that are environmentally conscious. If you are working on sustainability and waste separating, that is a big pro for those people.” 

“You can also save a lot of money with waste separating because, let's say you have an office with 100 desks, then normally you have 100 waste bins, so cleaning staff have to empty 100 hundred waste bins. If you reduce that to 20, then they only have to empty 20 bins, giving them more time to do other things. We always say: if you save 80% of your time, then you can spend 80% of your time cleaning better."

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