ECOTIC contributes to the transposition into Romanian of the international standard of preparation for reuse of electrical waste

de | aug. 31, 2020 | News

The collection and recycling of electrical and electronic waste has a very important stake from a double perspective. Many WEEE contains substances that are extremely toxic and dangerous for the environment and, at the same time, WEEE has one of the highest recycling rates, with 80-90% of its components being recyclable and reused in the economy as secondary raw materials ( metals, precious metals, etc.).

The National Standardization Body of Romania (ASRO) has completed the transposition into Romanian of the international standard for the repair of waste electrical and electronic equipment - EN 50614: 2020, at the initiative and with the technical support of the ECOTIC Organization and the Coalition for Circular Economy Association (CERC).

The standard applies to processes related to preparation for reuse of waste electrical and electronic equipment and supports organizations by:

  • encouraging the re-use of WEEE as specified in the WEEE Directive (2012/19 / EU);
  • reducing the volume of waste sent to landfill and incinerated by redirecting WEEE to be ready for reuse;
  • providing a framework to guarantee consumers and other stakeholders the safety of equipment and the quality of their preparation for re-use by operators;
  • promoting and creating jobs in organizations legally involved in preparing WEEE for reuse;
  • the prevention of illegal (cross-border) transfers of WEEE to allow regulators to differentiate this equipment from illegal exports of WEEE.

A campaign that promotes the reuse of equipment this year is also "Enter the circle of solidarity". The campaign is organized by ECOTIC and GreenWEEE, with the support of APDETIC, Informal IT School and Workshops without Borders. This campaign aims to give new life to IT equipment. IT equipment donations received in this campaign are reconditioned and then distributed to beneficiaries (disadvantaged families / communities, schools).

By performing specific operations of sanitation, repair, testing, quality control, labeling and packaging, reuse is superior to recycling contributing to the extension of the period of use and thus to the substantial reduction of the dioxide footprint.

This standard represents an important step towards the elaboration and introduction in Romania of the law to formalize the way in which the specific operations of reconditioning the obsolete electrical and electronic equipment are performed.

CERC aims to promote the main objective of the EC Package of Measures on the Circular Economy, to stimulate the development of new markets and business models, in order to develop the economy and create new jobs.

As part of the global standardization community, being also a member of ISO, IEC, CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, the Romanian National Standardization Body (ASRO) plays an important role in providing an easily accessible and necessary platform for a wider range. wide range of stakeholders in order to participate in the standardization work.