Press release - WEEE Forum

Brussels, 25 April 2013WEEELABEX organisation aims to improveWEEE industry practicesFollowing the introduction of the WEEELABEX standards in April 2011, twenty-sixwaste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) compliance schemes 1 have joinedtogether to set up an official WEEELABEX 2 organisation, which will help to implementthese standards across Europe.The organisation, created on 17 th April in Prague, is an international non-profit legalentity. It has been set-up to train auditors in the WEEELABEX standards 3 , as well as topromote the adoption of these standards by operators and member states as a meansto improve WEEE management practices in Europe.Once trained, WEEELABEX auditors will be qualified to approve operators’ WEEEtreatment processes as ‘WEEELABEX processes’. Members of the WEEELABEXorganisation will be required to recognise this conformity approval.1 The twenty-six producer compliance schemes who took part in the constituent GeneralAssembly in Prague on April 17 th are: Amb3E, Asekol, Budget Pack Environmental, EÅF,Ecodom, Ecolec, EcoLogic, Eco-systèmes, Eco Tic, Elektrowin, El-Kretsen, elretur, el retur,European Recycling Platform, Recupel, ReMedia, Repic, Retela, RoRec, SENS e-Recycling,SLRS, SWICO, UFH, Wecycle, WEEE Ireland and Zeos. All members, except EuropeanRecycling Platform and Budget Pack Environmental, are members of the WEEE Forum. TheWEEELABEX organisation is independent from the WEEE Forum.2 WEEELABEX (‘WEEE label of excellence’) is the acronym of a project (2009-12) co-financedby LIFE, the environmental programme of the European Community (LIFE07 ENV/B/000041).The project was run by the WEEE Forum, in coalition with representatives of the producers’ andWEEE processing community. It started in 2009; the launch of the organisation is theculmination of the project. Apart from the standards and the set-up of the new organisation, theproject has also resulted in proprietary audit process documents and reporting templates.3 The WEEELABEX standards lay down both administrative and technical requirements foroperators handling, transporting, treating, preparing for re-use and processing WEEE, as wellas downstream monitoring, de-pollution and reporting requirements. CENELEC, a Europeanstandards body, is currently processing those proprietary standards into official EN standards.

“The new organisation will provide assurance to producers and the public at large thatthe operators the WEEELABEX members work with meet the requirements set out inDirective 2012/19/EU on WEEE”, says Pascal Leroy, Secretary General of the WEEEForum and project manager of the WEEELABEX project. “The WEEELABEXorganisation is also expected to level the WEEE playing field and allow environmentalinspection authorities to enforce legislation.”Any auditor, regardless of the organisation they work for, can become a WEEELABEXauditor, provided they are eligible for the training programme and have successfullycompleted it.Jaroslav Vladik, Chairman of the executive WEEELABEX Governing Council (WGC),comments: “The recast Directive requires the European Commission to request thatstandardisation organisations develop criteria for the treatment – including recovery,recycling, and preparing for re-use – of WEEE and that those standards should reflectthe state of the industry. We believe that WEEELABEX is the perfect response to thisrequirement.”At the organisation’s founding General Assembly, members elected the governingcouncil: Jaroslav Vladik (Retela, Czech Republic); Christophe Pautrat (EuropeanRecycling Platform, France); Richard Toffolet (Eco-systèmes, France); Patrick Lampert(SENS e-recycling, Switzerland); Wayne Copley (Repic, United Kingdom); Martin Fišer(Asekol, Czech Republic); Peer Lund-Thomsen (el retur, Denmark) and Marco Sala(Ecodom, Italy). Jaroslav Vladik was elected chairman of the WGC. For certainmatters, the WGC will be extended to include representatives of CECED,DIGITALEUROPE, LightingEurope and EERA.For further information, please visit: http://www.weee-forum.org/weeelabexproject. Seealso FAQ.About the WEEE ForumENDSThe WEEE Forum (www.weee-forum.org) is a European non-profit association speaking for 39electrical and electronic equipment waste (WEEE) producer compliance schemes – alternativelyreferred to as ‘producer responsibility organisations’ (PRO). It was set up in the early 2000s.The 39 PROs are based in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Italy,Germany, Greece, France, Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It is thebiggest organisation of its kind in the world. In 2012, its member organisations reportedcollection and proper de-pollution and recycling of about 1.9 million tonnes of WEEE. Membersin 2013: Amb3E, Appliances Recycling, Asekol, Asekol SK, EÅF, EcoAsimelec, Ecodom,Ecolec, Ecologic, Ecoped, ecoR’it, Eco-systèmes, Ecotic, Eco Tic, EEPA, EES-Ringlus,ElektroEko, Elektrowin, El-Kretsen, elretur, el retur, Envidom, Fotokiklosi, Lightcycle, Lumicom,RAEcycle, Recicla Canaria, Recupel, ReMedia, Repic, Retela, RoRec, SENS e-Recycling,SLRS, SWICO, UFH, Wecycle, WEEE Ireland and Zeos.For more information, please contact: Pascal Leroy, Secretary General of the WEEE Forum andproject manager of the WEEELABEX project – Phone +32 473 756 153, pascal.leroy@weeeforum.org.