WEEELABEX

WEEELABEX Testimonials

Monday, 21 May 2012

13.30-18.00

Renaissance Brussels Hotel
Rue du Parnasse 19, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

WEEELABEX is the acronym (‘WEEE LABel of EXcellence’) of a project, run by the WEEE Forum in co-operation with stakeholders from the producers’ community and processing industry. The project (2009-2012) is co-financed by the European Community under the LIFE programme (LIFE07 ENV/B/000041).

The WEEELABEX project aims to design, on the one hand, a set of European standards (or ‘normative requirements’) with respect to the collection, sorting, storage, transportation, preparation for re-use, treatment and disposal of all kinds of WEEE, and, on the other hand, a set of rules and procedures that will guarantee harmonised conformity verification. The project affects all parties with whom the WEEELABEX compliance schemes (producer responsibility organisations) contract with, especially logistics companies and electronic waste processing firms.

The standards and the WEEELABEX conformity verification organisation will level the playing field by making environmental performance more transparent. The prospective new business will stimulate operators to meet high standards, while fraudulent companies will find it harder to dodge ‘the system’. Operators that have not been ‘WEEELABEX approved’ due to failure to comply with the standards will be subject to easier scrutiny by the authorities.
In time, the European standards organisations will translate at least parts of the WEEELABEX requirements into formal EN standards that confer a set of rules for all operators on the market to comply with the Directive.
The WEEELABEX standards are the world’s first continental, comprehensive and coherent set of requirements on operations from collection to disposal of WEEE. As such, they have started to resonate globally; standardisers in other parts of the world have identified WEEELABEX as a source of inspiration.

Some 10 WEEE producer responsibility organisations in the WEEE Forum have voluntarily committed to implementing the standards in their contracts and to gain experience in 2012. Those ‘early birds’ are: RECUPEL (Belgium), Wecycle (the Netherlands), Ecolec, Eco-asimelec, Ecofimática, Eco-RAEE’s and Ecotic (Spain), ReMedia and Ecodom (Italy), Eco-systèmes (France), SENS, SLRS and SWICO (Switzerland), Lightcycle (Germany) and RoRec (Romania). All other WEEE systems in the WEEE Forum will have the requirements in place by 31 December 2013 or 2014 (Eastern Europe).

In this unique event, organised in the context of the 20th anniversary of the LIFE Programme (http://life20.eu/), innovative recyclers, WEEE producer responsibility organisations, producers, enforcement agencies and standardisers will report how WEEELABEX is helping them in taking on the electronic waste challenge. One plant that as first has undergone ‘WEEELABEX conformity verification’ will be awarded the first pilot WEEELABEX audit certificate. There will be scope to discuss issues and meet the press.

Programme:

12.30 – 13.30 Registration

13.30 – 13.45 Welcome & Introduction (José Ramon Carbajosa, WEEE Forum)

13.45 – 14.05 Producer’s testimonial (David Scuderi, Samsung)

14.05 – 14.25 Recycler’s testimonial (Phär Oscár, Stena Technoworld)

14.25 – 14.45 Authority’s testimonial (Carl Huijbregts, Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate, NL)

14.45 – 15.05 WEEE system’s testimonial (Peter Sabbe, RECUPEL)

15.05 – 15.25 NGO's testimonial (Olivier Vanden Eynde, Close the Gap)

Coffee break

15.45 – 16.05 The world of WEEELABEX (Pascal Leroy and Thérèse Shryane, WEEE Forum)

16.05 – 16.30 Award of WEEELABEX pilot audit certificate

16.30 – 16.45 Interactive panel discussion

16.30 – 16.45 Closing remarks (President, WEEE Forum)

16.45 – 18.00 Cocktail – Meet the press

NOTE: Thorsten Brunzema, WEEE desk officer in the European Commission, will take part in the discussions.

Each presentation will be followed by a Q&A.

Please register your presence with magdalena.charytanowicz@weee-forum.org by 27 April 2012 end of business. For further inquiries, please contact pascal.leroy@weee-forum.org.

WEEELABEX Project

On 28 July 2008, the Life committee, an EU body composed of representatives of the member states and of the European Commission, approved "WEEELABEX", the WEEE Forum's multi-annual project aimed at laying down a set of European standards with respect to collection, treatment, recovery and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and monitoring the processing companies.