Annual Report - Sens
Annual Report - Sens
Annual Report - Sens
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Leadership:<br />
setting standards<br />
The WEEE Forum, the European Association of Electrical and Electronic Waste Take<br />
Back Systems, is participating in a four-year project aimed at defining the quality standard<br />
for recycling these appliances. SENS is actively involved in this important project.<br />
The WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive<br />
is the European directive on the environmentally friendly recycling<br />
of the ever-increasing volume of electrical and electronic<br />
scrap. The WEEE Forum unites 41 European take-back and<br />
recycling systems for electrical and electronic appliances, which<br />
implement the WEEE Directive by taking account of ‘producer<br />
responsibility’ on the part of the manufacturers and importers<br />
in their respective countries. SENS has been a member of this<br />
association since it was founded and the SENS President has<br />
been President of the WEEE Forum for four years.<br />
WEEELABEX: the European standard for the recycling of<br />
electrical and electronic appliances<br />
WEEELABEX stands for WEEE LABel of EXcellence and is<br />
partly financed by the EU (LIFE plus), which contributes 50 per<br />
cent. For three years now the members of the WEEE Forum<br />
have been working hard in various working groups to define<br />
a European standard for the recycling of electrical and electronic<br />
appliances. Now we are at last within reach of our goal:<br />
by the end of 2012 the project will have been completed and<br />
the organisation in charge of implementing the directive established<br />
and operational. The intention is to transfer WEEELABEX<br />
as the standard to CENELEC, the European Committee for<br />
Electrotechnical Standardisation, with the aim of formulating a<br />
European (EN) standard from this, which will in the end be<br />
bin ding on all EU countries. Harmonising the recycling standards<br />
in this way will make a vital contribution to ensuring that<br />
the same requirements for the recycling of electrical and electronic<br />
appliances will apply within Europe, creating in turn a<br />
level playing field within the recycling industry.<br />
More market transparency, more efficient processes<br />
What are the advantages of a European standard for the Swiss<br />
recycling industry? It produces far-reaching synergies, not<br />
only within Europe, but also between Europe and Switzerland.<br />
Standardisation ensures more market transparency in all the<br />
countries involved. Moreover, the Swiss take-back systems<br />
will benefit from the fact that the auditing processes can be<br />
structured and implemented just as before to a great extent.<br />
Quality<br />
Consequently, the Bundesamt für Umwelt (BAFU – Swiss<br />
Federal Office for the Environment, FOEN) will take account of<br />
the WEEELABEX when implementing the revision of the VREG:<br />
for example with regard to the way the appliance categories<br />
are structured or when incorporating the Technical Rules into<br />
national legislation or defining the latest technologies. The<br />
success of the quality standards we have produced jointly<br />
demonstrates that in today’s global context even relatively<br />
small take-back systems such as SENS can make a vital contribution<br />
to ensuring a visionary course in future.<br />
The next step involves identifying the conditions needed to<br />
implement the standards easily and regulate them efficiently in<br />
the different countries. This includes defining and implemen ting<br />
the auditing guidelines and training the auditors appropriately.<br />
Creating organisational structures that will guarantee the neutrality<br />
and independence of the commissioned auditors is indeed<br />
important. Last but not least, the members of the WEEE Forum<br />
will need to address the issue as to whether a standard defined<br />
in this way for Europe could also be applied globally and<br />
so create clear, uniform processes throughout the world.<br />
Specialist report for download<br />
The 2011 specialist report by the technical auditors, TK-SENS<br />
and TK-SWICO, will be available for download at no charge from<br />
� www.sens.ch from mid-2012.<br />
SENS <strong>Annual</strong> <strong>Report</strong> 2011 27