eWASA News – 3 Dec 21

As you are all aware, the current EPR regulations came into effect on 5 November 2021.

It required all obligated Parties, Producers and PROs, to comply with the provisions within the said regulations.

As a good corporate citizen, eWASA ensured that we complied and submitted all required information such as pricing strategy, EPR scheme, Board constitution etc. In fact, in most requirements, we were the first to do so.

However, one of the key aspects of regulations was for DFFE to “concur” with the proposed EPR pricing strategy on or before 5 November 2021.
Regrettably, this has not happened to date and has resulted in many queries and concerns across all waste streams. In addition, it will have a significant impact on eWASA and its members achieving the set recycling targets for November/December 2021.

This delay is totally out of our control.

We have written to DFFE on no fewer than three occasions over the past five weeks, asking for updates and clarity on the matter to no avail, not even an acknowledgement of our written requests.

Finally, out of desperation, we wrote to Minister Creecy earlier this week to intervene.
We will issue an update if and when we receive a response.

In the interim, please be advised that notwithstanding the above, the regulations are in force and applicable to all obligated Parties to fulfil their respective obligations.

Waste shipment authorities and COSCO shipping lines responded swiftly to a letter sent to them in the Greek port of Piraeus, by the Basel Action Network (BAN) as part of a coalition effort to prevent European wastes from being exported. The groups had learned that the ship COSCO PRIDE was to be loaded with 37 containers full of German plastic waste originally sent to Turkey but were now slated to be re-exported to Haiphong, Vietnam. Following the letter, the containers were blocked and will not be sailing to Asia.

As reported by the German magazine ‘Wirtschaftswoche’, the wastes were sent from Germany to Turkey last year, but the importer lost its license to import waste after the Turkish government began to crack down on mixed and dirty plastic waste imports. The Turkish authorities tried to get the German government to take the waste back, but the German government refused Turkish requests to repatriate the waste. The Turkish government then rebooked the containers for export to third countries, most prominently to Vietnam. According to trusted insider information, the environmental groups learned of the containers and traced them to the port of Piraeus where they were awaiting imminent departure. They also learned that 16 similarly rejected COSCO containers had made their way from Turkey to Haiphong, Vietnam via Piraeus earlier this year.

The environmental groups claim the shipments are illegal based on the Waste Shipment Regulation (Article 22) and the Basel Convention (Article 8) rules that require exporting countries to repatriate and take responsibility for wastes they export when the shipment cannot be completed according to the contract. While applauding the action of Greek authorities and COSCO Shipping, all attention now turns to Germany.

“It is outrageous and unacceptable that German wastes can be diverted in this way when a direct export from Germany to Vietnam would be absolutely forbidden,” said Jim Puckett, Executive Director of the Basel Action Network. “Germany should never have allowed the export of these wastes to Turkey in the first place. Second, they should have absolutely taken them back once Turkey asked them to. We are calling on them to do so now.”

There are at least 80 more containers full of German plastic waste now believed to be sitting in Turkey from the COSCO, Sealand, MSC, Maersk and Hamburg Sud shipping lines.

VIA WRI: Reducing waste throughout the supply chain, from manufacturing to recycling, requires an intermediary that can process waste into sustainable raw materials for new clothing production. That is where Closing the Loop on Textile Waste in Kenya comes in. They use a revolutionary chemical recycling technology, developed by U.S.-based company PurFi, which recycles textile waste into high-quality products that can be re-used in new manufacturing.