Interseroh Supports FEAD’s Call for Confidentiality in Cross-Border Trading

German-based recycling company Interseroh has released a statement in support of the European Federation of Waste Management and Environmental Services’ (FEAD) call for better protection of confidentiality in international trade of secondary resources.

Eric Bernhard, managing director, Europe, ISR Interseroh Rohstoffe GmbH, says: “From FEAD’s and Interseroh’s point of view, EC Regulation No. 1013/2006 on shipments of waste poses a risk for international trading with important secondary resources, which had been working without any problems for many years. Driven by worldwide demand, trade of recovered paper, steel and metal scrap, recovered plastics, recovered wood and other secondary resources is increasingly global. To regulate the trade of these valuable materials as if they were typical waste products which would need to be carefully monitored does no longer reflect their character as globally demanded secondary resources.”

He continues, “Paper mills and textile manufacturers are not waste recycling plants, but rather manufacturers of new products made of secondary resources, such as recovered paper and PET bottles, which are in demand globally and have been trading at positive prices for a long time.”

Bernhard, responsible for Interseroh group’s European activities in recovered paper, plastics and wood, criticized the “Annex VII” portion of the regulation, which, as a legally binding document, requires full traceability of the entire transport chain for the final customer in the case of recovered paper shipments. This, according to Bernhard, represents a clear danger to confidential supplier relationships. 

According to Interseroh, the publication of confidential supplier relationships along the entire supply chain is in no way acceptable, and Interseroh and FEAD oppose the legislation.

“The current initiatives within the member states to develop their own national regulation for the local application of this Annex VII aiming at protecting the interests of individual supply chain participants at the national level, are impractical within the common and de-facto borderless market,” the Interseroh release states. “It contradicts the goal of free trade and would permanently counteract the desired developments of resource- and climate-friendly industries.”

Bernhard, who also is chairman of a FEAD delegation for the negotiations with the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI), adds, “The established international standards which are binding between the industry associations FEAD, ERPA (European Recovered Paper Association) and CEPI, such as the European norm EN 643 defining the European List of Standard Grades of Recovered Paper and Board, are sufficient instruments for market regulation.”

FEAD is asking the European Commission for uniform European legislation that is acceptable for all member states in that it complies with environmental safety requirements, especially the traceability throughout the supply chain, and respects the confidentiality requirements of cross-border secondary resources trade Europe-wide and globally.