During the BIR meeting of the International Environment Council, Ross Bartley, the BIR’s Environmental and Technical director, said that the process taking place within the European Union to develop end-of-waste criteria is needed by the recycling industry. The world recycling body “will go right to the end of the process” to ensure maximum benefit and relief for its members and for the industry as a whole, he insisted.
Francis Veys, BIR’s director, noted that all EU member states would fully support what emerges from the end-of-waste deliberations in order to minimize differences in interpretation and implementation. “I see no reason why we won’t get this better regulation. In a few years, movement of materials falling short of these end-of-waste criteria would prove to be very difficult,” Veys added. “That is the way things are going.”
During the meeting, held at the recently concluded BIR spring meeting, a significant amount of discussion was spent reviewing various attendees’ experiences with extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes.
A positive step in regards to EPR was expressed by Jan Vermoesen, a spokesman for the Belgian trade association COBEREC. In his remarks, Vermoesen noted that there is support for investments in special facilities to treat materials such as CFCs and cathode ray tubes. Such schemes had also created public awareness of separate collection as well as a positive image for the recycling sector. On the downside, Vermoesen noted confidentiality issues growing from the reporting of clients’ names as well as EPR organizations’ monopoly position with the power to allocate a market.
Other speakers at the session included Vladimir Dimitrov of the Bulgarian Association of Recycling, who explained the progress being made toward enshrining the “polluter pays” principle in his own country.
Igor Bilimoff of the French metal recycling trade association FEDEREC argued that the increasing number of EPR initiatives in France was a reflection of the municipalities’ desire to spend as little money as possible on “waste” activities.
Len Shaw of the Canadian Association of Recycling Industries said that his organization supported the EPR concept, but only if a number of conditions were met. For example, he argued the main focus should be on designing products in such a way as to alleviate issues at the end-of-life phase. Furthermore, the recycling industry should be allowed to have its say at the development stage of an EPR scheme as producers generally lacked expertise in the field of collection.
Shaw also questioned the introduction of EPR schemes for end-of-life products that were already well managed. In a similar context, COBEREC’s Vermoesen had earlier contended that no EPR initiative was necessary “if collection and treatment are market-driven”.