Mon, 27th Jan, 2020
The 86th meeting of the European Electronics Recyclers Association (EERA) took place in Salzburg on January 21st, with a large member turnout, in advance of the 19th International Electronics Recycling Congress (IERC) https://www.icm.ch/ierc-2020. A new EERA member from Serbia and a prospect from Poland were welcomed.
The main focus points for EERA in 2020 were presented and discussed among members.
1. Batteries in WEEE
2. Plastics from WEEE
3. Mandatory Standards and Revisions of Standards
4. Cross border Shipments of WEEE and/or materials from WEEE recycling, North-Sea Resources Roundabout- Fast-track Notifications
5. I4R – Information for Recyclers
6. Status and future of the European WEEE-Directive
It was decided to create a new Technical Working Group (TWG) for the upcoming review of the CENELEC standards. This group will start as soon as the outcome of the EC study on quality treatment standards is published. The planning of TC 111x WG 6 is pending until the outcome of the study is released. There is special interest in the review of EN 50625 2-3 for Temperature Exchange Equipment. The proposed CENELEC TC 111x WG 6 for EN 50625 2-3 is planned for 2022, but there are already quite a lot of questions to address.
Among the topics discussed at the meeting, chaired by EERA President, Kurt Kyck, were the following:
The TWG on plastics presented new information related to the Poly CE project ‘Post-Consumer Recycled Plastics for a Circular Economy’ and an update on the current status of the work done in the batteries TWG . The outcome of the joint survey commissioned by the roundtable group on batteries, in which many stakeholders are involved, is expected soon.
The North Sea Resources Roundabout – Fast Track pilot project (NSRR- FTN) was discussed, referring to last week’s meeting, in which Yorg Aerts, EC DG Env participated. This group is working on proposals to the European Commission (EC DG Env) related to the financial guarantees. The amount of money involved is estimated at 1 billion euros of immobilized money. It has been identified that a financial guarantee is needed in only in 1 in 10,000 cases.
EERA was represented at the IERC with an exhibition stand and EERA and the WEEE Forum gave a joint presentation on ‘The Case for Legally Binding WEEE Standards’. The European Commission, Bettina Lorz, senior expert DG Env gave an update on the study on quality standards for treatment, with outcomes expected by the end of March.