EuRIC considers CEPI’s paper guidelines to be non-binding

Europe – The European Recycling Industries’ Confederation (EuRIC) and the European Federation of Waste Management and Environmental Services (FEAD) have contended that the revised paper for recycling control guidelines published by the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) cannot be considered to be binding on their members’ associations or the companies they represent

Issued by CEPI in April this year (see page 88 of Recycling International’s May issue), the guidelines cover, for example, what quality controllers should consider during an inspection in order to decide whether a load should be accepted, conditionally accepted or refused. They also incorporate recommendations about documentation and information for suppliers.

In a joint statement, EuRIC and FEAD quote CEPI’s comments that the revision was undertaken to ‘facilitate a common understanding’ of the revised EN 643 standard covering paper and board for recycling and to ‘facilitate commercial relationships’ between recovered paper suppliers and mills.

‘However,’ EuRIC and FEAD add, ‘these guidelines, unilaterally published by CEPI, have neither been co-signed by EuRIC nor FEAD. We therefore consider that these revised guidelines do not bind our members’ associations or the waste management and recycling companies we represent.’

Instead, they continue, EuRIC and FEAD members are committed to giving ‘clear priority’ to the on-going work by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) on developing standards and/or technical specifications supporting the implementation of the revised EN 643 standard.

‘Our members consider this as a crucial first step before assessing the need for additional joint industry recommendations,’ they state.

EuRIC and FEAD also underline in the statement that ‘the production of quality secondary raw materials is a constant priority for the paper recycling industry to compete with and substitute virgin materials’.