Working group aims to establish ‘fast track’ for WEEE shipments

Europe – As part of the International Green Deal North Sea Resources Roundabout (NSRR) ‘Fast Tracks’ initiative, the first meeting has been held of a working group convened to explore ways to make shipments easier and faster to compliant EU recyclers of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

In this case, which has been initiated by Müller-Guttenbrunn GmbH and HKS Metals, public and private sector experts from Flanders, France, the UK and the Netherlands are being joined by Austrian colleagues to examine, among other issues, the possibilities for commonly-accepted criteria for pre-consents and mutually-accepted processes. The European Commission’s DG Environment will follow the case as an observer.

The NSRR was initiated to stimulate ‘green’ growth in the North Sea region by facilitating trade and transportation of secondary resources. A maximum of 10 secondary resource streams or cases are envisaged, each tasking a working group with devising practical and scalable solutions to the barriers encountered. ‘Most solutions are likely to involve the harmonisation of national interpretation and enforcement of EU legislation and will not require new rules or regulations,’ it is stated.

Facilitating shipments to compliant WEEE recyclers in Europe will enable the secondary raw materials ‘to flow much in the same way as primary raw materials do, thus boosting the production of secondary raw materials for the European Circular Economy’. Also, Fast-Tracks Notifications ‘are expected to free up time and resources from the authorities, which can then be used to fight true illegal exports of WEEE and fractions of WEEE’.