WEEELABEX (WEEE Label of Excellence) is a project developed by the European Commission in partnership with WEEE Forum. It aims at implementing a set of standards at European level on the entire WEEE management circuit – collection, storage, treatment, recycling, recovery and finally the environmental sound disposal of resulted materials. The purpose is to limit pollution and raise efficiency in recovering the materials resulted from the recycling processes.
Here are a few requirements imposed by the WEEELABEX standards: implementing organizing measures that focus on environmental protection, monitoring the depollution of WEEE, ensuring the traceability of WEEE until it is no longer considered waste, as well as improving internal processes – including ensuring the personnel’s security.
The WEEELABEX certification process has started in August for the first Romanian operators: Greenweee and Rematholding Co SRL. Here are the steps that operators must go through within the certification process:
– submitting the Declaration of Intention to WEEELABEX OFFICE
– a General Audit by the audit team that includes a Lead Auditor and a general auditor
– the execution of reference tests for the WEEE fluxes that need to be certified
– writing the final report by the audit team; they recommend the operator to be listed or not in the List of WEEELABEX Certified Operators.
A big role in the WEEELABEX auditing and certification process is held by the WEEELABEX auditor inside ECOTIC’s team: Diana Grosu. We have managed to get to the point where operators can be certified thanks to years-long efforts by the entire operational team of ECOTIC. The team has imposed and assumed WEEELABEX standards for contracts with operators that deal with WEEE treatment.
„SC REMATHOLDING Co SRL Bucharest, with the support and expertise of ECOTIC, started a program for the implementation of the WEEELABEX European standard in our processes of collection, sorting, temporary storage, treatment, recycling, recovery and ecologic disposal of WEEE; consequently, we aligned our activity to European requirements and thus we contribute to the elimination of pollution and decrease of climate change and global warming.” said Mr. Nicolae Manole, Economic Advisor.
The certification focuses to the extraction (separation) of materials, substances and dangerous components for their recovery, neutralization and environmentally sound disposal; safer procedures for the operators’ employees and a stricter record for better traceability of waste and subsequent fractions.
By the end of 2017, all WEEE treatment operators inside ECOTIC’s system will have gone through this certification process.