In June, parties to the Basel Convention adopted amendments to ensure all transboundary movements of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) are subject to the prior informed consent (PIC) procedure from January 2025 (see letsrecycle.com story).
The Basel Convention’s PIC procedure has strict requirements for the transboundary movements of hazardous and other wastes.
There are ongoing discussions about incorporating the amendments into the OECD Control System for waste recovery, a simplified control procedure for waste exports within the OECD area.
In a joint statement issued last week (9 November), European private waste management trade association FEAD and the European Electronics Recyclers Association (EERA) said surveys of both organisations’ members showed “clear deficiencies and big disparities” in the implementation of the PIC procedure.
FEAD and EERA said it was “critical” to update and improve the procedure to make it simple, online and transparent. They also called for pre-consent status for facilities to be “strengthened” and for financial guarantees to include a risk-based approach.
Amendments such as these, FEAD and EERA say, would facilitate the trade of recyclables in an “environmentally sound and economically efficient manner”.
Notification procedures
Peter Kurth, FEAD’s president, said notification procedures were currently “long and burdensome” and needed to change, “if we want to make the circular economy a reality.”
“In this sense, the unification and harmonisation of administrative costs is also important,” he added. “These are currently prohibitively high and not proportional to the risk, costs or work involved, and significantly increase the overall financial burden of legitimate global e-waste operators.
“What we are asking for is harmonised, transparent, risk-based requirements that result in reasonable and justifiable administration costs.”
Kurt Kyck, EERA’s president, said the pre-consented status for facilities needed to become “a reality recognised by all competent authorities in OECD countries”.
He said: “For this to happen, it should become a mandatory obligation to implement and not a mere possibility.
“It is worrying to see that 30 years after its regulation, members reported there being little or no difference in the administrative and financial burden between a consignment made to a pre-consented facility or not.”
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