Interview with Cătălin Gurău, general manager CECED România (Association of European Domestic Equipment Manufacturers from Romania)  

Interview by Raluca Grințescu, published in edition no.1/2012 of Infomediu Europa

How many times have you been participant in the IERC  as representative of CECED Romania? What raised your interest in the two-day congress?

I have attended this event for the first time and it seems to me very important, probably IERC is the main annual event in Europe related to recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment. It is interesting from several points of view, both in terms of technical solutions and of research on recycling of some equipment that only now are becoming waste, such as TVs or LCD monitors. Romania may reach such waste in 2-3 years or more, but it is clear that we cannot avoid recycling. We must seek solutions from now.

What projects does CECED Romania have on its 2012 agenda?

In Romania it is necessary to improve legislation that today puts all the responsibility on producers’ shoulders, without giving them tools to solve this controversial issue, because, on the one hand, responsibility for achieving the collection target was transferred to industry, but the collecting process is the task of local authorities. It is an unusual situation in which the industry is responsible for the result of an activity performed by another party, such as  local authorities. It is a quite difficult issue and we believe that it is necessary to remodel or improve a building control legislation because we know that we have problems with waste that is collected and recycled by third parties (the so-called informal sector) which do not reach the producers systems and are unable to be tracked, monitored and included in the reports to the authorities, such as the National Environmental Protection Agency or the Ministry. This issue was and remains on our agenda: to shed light on these flows and improvements at both legislative and surveillance level, because many operators are apparently “collecting” without the necessary technology or required authorizations, WEEE being collected along with scrap metal. There are many wastes that take this path of substandard treatment. It’s easy to make profit by extracting only the valuable parts of WEEE and discard the rest, under more or less controlled conditions. It is hard when you apply consistent treatment and ensure the traceability fractions attained in order to reach the recycling target. This is a common issue in Europe, but in Romania is more acute than elsewhere. There is also an urgent need to improve the legislation.

Will CECED Romania be actively involved in taking the responsibility of the new European Directive of WEEE in order to implement it in Romanian legislation so that the result will reflect an accurate transposition of the Community act?

Sure, this is one of the main roles of the association, namely to monitor the correct transposition of the acquis communautaire of the European legislation and furthermore to pursue an accurate and easy to apply legislation. WEEE Directive and its revision is one of our activity, therefore its correct implementation means quite a lot in terms of fair processes, fair treatment, fair costs, which ultimately are reflected in product prices and are borne by consumers. In discussions with the authorities, we have been involved from the very beginning and we are open to bring off an analysis, based on what is happening in Romania and on the text of the Directive and how it can be implemented so as to have a better efficiency and to attract more WEEE into the systems designed to their treatment so that they can be safely recycled to protect the environment and human health. We have always sustained the idea of minimum requirements for these wastes. Now we have the WEEE Forum project, called "WEELABEX", which will end with a set of rules that will most likely be assumed and adopted as standards by the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC). RoRec Association, made up of CECED members, is the first among those who will apply the WEEE standards starting with 2012. On the one hand, we stand for a coherent, fair and transparent legislation, and, on the other hand, for consistent and verifiable processes which should not endanger life, human health and the environment.

Those who do not comply with minimum requirements relating to collection, transport, treatment, monitoring and reporting will disappear from the market?

It depends very much on the surveillance of authorities, of how the Environmental Guard and environmental protection agencies will analyze what happens. On the one hand, it depends on the way environmental licenses will be issued for those treating WEEE, that environmental agencies are responsible for, and, on the other hand, on how compliance will be monitored (including the conditions imposed by environmental licenses) by the Environmental Guard.