The Bureau of International Recycling and the European Federations, EUROMETREC and ERPA express serious concern about the revision of the EU Waste Shipment Regulations, for which the European Council is now determining its position.
In particular, early in the legislative process, the Commission had added a ‘notifier hierarchy’ that would from 2006 seriously restrict licensed collectors, registered dealers, brokers and traders from carrying out their business. Currently these businesses are licensed, registered or permitted by their national authorities.
The Commission never publicly justified this ‘notifier hierarchy’, its origin remaining a mystery. This ‘notifier hierarchy’ restriction slipped through the EU Parliament’s first reading and is now submitted to the Council. Without change, this legal text will damage currently well functioning markets, by removing the specialist operators.
As an example of the benefit of specialists, the role of a dealer/trader/broker in the management of metal containing drosses, ashes and residues has a long history of a most positive effect on the efficiency of the metal recycling industry, and is well recognized by the OECD for maintaining a functioning market.
For the whole range of other recycling materials (now up to 50% of all materials used by industry) no dealer, trader or broker would be allowed to arrange export to industrializing countries which require notifications, and no dealer, trader or broker in those materials would be allowed to arrange export to Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia, these requiring notification through the Accession Treaty arrangements. This will damage business, and unintended will encourage industrializing Countries wanting these materials, yet requiring notification, to drop their controls.
BIR and the European Federations EFR, EUROMETREC and ERPA have been working on this issue over the past two years. BIR recently highlighted this threat at its 2003 World Recycling Convention urging action at national level, yet the text persists and time is running out.