BIR Releases Publication on ISO Compliance

The Bureau of International Recycling released a publication designed to assist recovery and recycling companies in implementing an ISO-compliant Environmental Management System with integrated OECD core performance elements was during its fall convention.

"Tools for Environmentally Sound Management" is available free to all recovery and recycling companies worldwide via the BIR website.

According to BIR’s Environmental & Technical Director Ross Bartley, "Tools for Environmentally Sound Management" was the first to demonstrate integration of the OECD Core Performance Elements and therefore complemented the different systems in place in different countries.

Bartley added that guidelines would be published shortly on the environmentally sound management of used and end-of-life mobile phones as part of the Basel Convention Partnership Programme. The next step at UN-EP would be to focus on electronic waste, including computers.

The BIR also is lobbying for secondary raw materials to be left outside of the scope of REACH, the EU’s new chemicals policy. Taking ferrous scrap as his example, Bartley suggested this material should not be covered by REACH because it represented "an intermediate" which was used to produce another substance and because it was destined for an IPPC installation, namely a steelworks, and because ferrous scrap competed with iron ore which is itself not covered by REACH.

During the meeting, Robin Wiener, president of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, confirmed that a recently signed Memorandum of Understanding would usher in the first-ever national mercury switch removal program. The automotive and steel industries had agreed to contribute in equal measure to a $ 4 million fund, from which dismantlers and recyclers would be paid $ 1 for each switch. Rollout of the program is expected to begin early next year.

Ruggero Alocci of Assofermet in Italy explained to delegates that, after a long wait, new national waste legislation had been introduced in April this year. However, following a change of government in Italy, waste regulations were to come under further review - thereby opening up the possibility of another shift in the definition of secondary raw materials, he said.