Amsterdam, 8 May 2019 The consortium meeting of the EU-funded critical raw materials CEWASTE project held a coordination meeting in Amsterdam from 7-8 May. During this meeting progress and intermediate results of the project were reported and reviewed, and next steps towards achieving the objectives were defined. The project – that was launched last year December – has already conducted a baseline and gap analysis. These are based on a mapping of priority critical raw materials (CRM) products and conditions for enabling CRM recycling, as well as on a mapping of current normative requirements and verification mechanisms.
The CEWASTE partners discussed working arrangements for the two first work packages. On the second day all work package and task leaders presented an overview of progress and status of their work packages and made the necessary arrangements for accomplishing the remaining tasks and deliverables of the project. The next project meeting is tentatively planned to be clustered with the World Resources Forum conference in Geneva, October 2019.
Critical Raw Materials need special attention
Raw materials are crucial to Europe’s economy. They form a strong industrial base, producing a broad range of goods and applications used in everyday life and modern technologies. Reliable and unhindered access to certain raw materials is a growing concern within the EU and across the globe. In its H2020 work program the European Union determined its goal to moving to a greener, more resource efficient and climate-resilient economy. As part of its strategy to reach these goals in 2010 and 2014 the Commission identified a list of Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) that need special attention due to their economic importance and higher risk of supply interruption. CEWASTE is addressing these challenges by developing a standardization process in the value chain of secondary raw materials from wastes containing relevant amounts of valuable and critical raw materials.
CEWASTE is a two-year project funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. It will develop a voluntary certification scheme for waste treatment. Specifically, the project will create, validate and launch the scheme for collection, transport and treatment facilities of key types of waste containing significant amounts of valuable and critical raw materials such as waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and batteries.
The CEWASTE consortium is led by the World Resources Forum Association. As an independent non-profit international organization, the World Resources Forum Association (WRF) serves as a platform connecting and fostering knowledge exchange on resources management amongst business leaders, policymakers, NGOs, scientists and the public. We envision the world where all involved stakeholders interact and communicate on setting the agenda and developing solutions on sustainable use of resources worldwide. With our annual flagship conference “World Resources Forum”, WRF allows the sharing of knowledge and creates debate amongst all stakeholders involved in the resource management discourse. Hence initiating a project such as CEWASTE and coordinating a multi-stakeholder dialogue in a standardization process towards more efficient use of critical raw materials is a role WRF wants to play.
WRF has been involved in various other stakeholder dialogue and international development cooperation projects, such as the Sustainable Recycling Industries (SRI), which contributes to favourable framework conditions for sustainable e-waste management and related waste streams in developing countries. In the frame of this programme and under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), we have developed an International Workshop Agreement (IWA) for the Sustainable Management of Secondary Metals (Guidance Principles) together with key experts in the field, partners from the industry, civil society organization and the informal sector, as well as policy makers and UN organizations.
More about CEWASTE
The Horizon 2020 CEWASTE project aims to develop a voluntary certification scheme for collection, transport and treatment facilities of key types of waste (focus on e-waste and EoL batteries) containing significant amounts of valuable and Critical Raw Materials (CRMs). The project will ultimately address the specific challenge to secure the sustainable access to CRMs for the EU economy as well as objectives set by the EU action plan for the Circular Economy. By leading the CEWASTE project, WRFA brings in its broad experiences from waste management projects and ensures a transparent multi-stakeholder process which is essential for standardization activities. This will be a step towards realizing its vision in developing solutions for sustainable use of resources.
See the CEWASTE website for all information and news of the project.
