At its most recent meeting in April, the General Assembly of the WEEE Forum approved the first set of WEEELABEX standard. For the first time ever, a uniform, general set of normative requirements was set, covering all 10 WEEE categories that will affect all parties involved in the WEEE management chain, from collection to disposal. These norms will change the landscape substantially and for good.
The collection systems of the WEEE Forum, representing approximately 2/3 of the official European players, have agreed that they will, in the coming months, require the collection sites, operators and recyclers with whom they have a contractual relationship to implement these standards.
“The new standards will result in less pollution, higher levels of recovery of secondary raw materials, better occupational health and safety conditions and a more transparent material flow management”, says Andreas Röthlisberger, WEEE Forum President. “And there is no scope for semi-legal shipments of WEEE”.
“We expect authorities in Europe to acknowledge and provide support for the local implementation of these standards”, comments Pascal Leroy, Secretary General of the WEEE Forum and WEEELABEX Project Manager. “But these new standards will probably resonate globally as well. Operators in other parts of the world will likely wish to adhere to the same high level set of principles”.
At least part of the WEEELABEX requirements will likely end up becoming standards affecting all operators on the market. This ambition of the European Parliament – as stipulated in its amendment to the recast Directive – enjoys the full support of the WEEE Forum.
In the coming two years, a scheme that harmonizes the rules for the verification of conformity with the normative requirements will be implemented. This scheme is of a private and unique nature, yet is expected to demonstrate how European rules can be enforced in a harmonized manner.
“With the approval of these standards, the producers’ community shows to be taking the principle of producer responsibility very seriously”, added Andreas Röthlisberger.
The WEEE Forum was founded in April 2002. It counts 38 WEEE producer responsibility organizations from Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Greece, France, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Great Britain, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. All organizations are non-profit and run on behalf of a community of about 17,000 producers.
Members in 2010: Amb3E, Appliances Recycling, Asekol, Ecoasimelec, Ecodom, Ecofimatica, Ecolec, Ecologic, Ecoped, Eco-RAEE’s, ecoR"Ÿit, Eco-systèmes, Ecotic, Eco Tic, EEPA, ElectroCoord, ElektroEko, Elektrowin, El-Kretsen, elretur, el retur, Envidom, ICT Milieu, Lightcycle, Lumicom, Recupel, ReMedia, Repic, Retela, RoRec, SENS, SEWA, SLRS, SWICO, UFH, Wecycle, WEEE Ireland and Zeos. Collectively, the members of the WEEE Forum collected and reported proper de-pollution and recycling of more than 2 million tons of WEEE.
WEEELABEX is short for “WEEE Label of Excellence”. This is the acronym of a project run by WEEE Forum in co-operation with stakeholders from the electric and electronic equipment industry, recycling industry, academic environment and environmental organizations.
The project aims to design a set of European standards with respect to the collection, sorting, storage, transportation, treatment and disposal of all WEEE types. The project is co-financed by the European Commission under the LIFE Program.
WEEELABEX will help make environmental performance more transparent and provide equal conditions by developing a unique and harmonized set of standards. It will create incentives for operators to meet the highest standards and deter dishonest companies in their attempt to "cheat" the system.
Source: WEEELABEX