Standards Development

Scope

This standard provides a framework for the sustainable management of secondary materials considering valuable materials. The framework includes sustainability (Social aspects will be considered, with respect to the transition from informal to formal sector) and traceability requirements for economic operators recovering valuable materials from all kinds of waste streams. Thus, this framework supports the Sustainable Development Goals, notably, poverty alleviation (SDG1), decent working conditions (SDG8), reduced (gender) inequalities (SDGs 5 and 10), responsible consumption and production (SDG12), climate actions (SDG13), among others

This standard is intended to be used by organizations or group of organizations regardless of their size and location, aiming to manage their own activity and collectively their activities to shift from a linear to a circular economy. Among others it helps organizations or group of organizations to increase the efficiency of the circular use of resources while promoting social and economic benefits.

Users of this Standard includes:

• economic operators that wish to demonstrate that their recovered materials, secondary materials sourced or products manufactured from secondary materials are compliant with this Standard; economic operators also include producer responsibility organizations (PRO) initiatives willing to implement extended producer responsibility (EPR) programmes;

• national or local governments and inter-governmental organizations willing to develop treaties, conventions, laws, regulations or policies based on the Standard; •

• public or private organizations, financial institutions and development organizations using the Standard as a framework to evaluate the impact and risks associated with projects related to secondary materials;

• civil society organizations (CSOs) and specialists conducting awareness raising and capacity building activities on environmental and socio-economic impacts of secondary materials production.

This standard include guidance and authoritative framework to support the transition from informal to formal sector in waste management activities. This standard aims to increase the collaboration between the informal economic operators and formal economic operators and prevent competition among them.

The standard addresses the evaluation of the social and environmental aspects.

NOTE: This document will provide illustrative examples on implementation for secondary materials recovery, and on implementation in the informal sector. Illustrative examples on implementation for improving the recovery of secondary materials provide guidance aspects to be considered for an improved recovery of secondary materials in terms of quantity (increased recovery efficiency) and quality of the materials recovered. The illustrative examples on implementation in the informal sector guide economic operators of secondary materials value chains in the efficient and credible implementation of improved recycling practices, in particular in emerging and developing economies. 

Purpose

General Background for secondary materials (International Standard) The demand for resources is being increasingly covered by secondary materials. Over the period of 1900 to 2010, global material in-use (or stocks) increased 23-fold, reaching 792 Pg (±5%) in 2010. Despite efforts to improve recycling rates, recycling still only contributed 12% of inflows to stocks in 2010. Stocks continued growing, driven by increasing demands especially from the emerging and rapidly growing economies.

Policies or international frameworks for sustainable resource management especially in industrialized economies are increasingly aligning to circular economy targets and, hence, incorporating a life cycle perspective. However, these mainly focus on resource use efficiency and environmental aspects and disregard socio-economic implications. Moreover, developing countries generally lack of appropriate mechanisms and laws or their enforcement to support increased circularity based on life cycle thinking. Recycling rates vary from material to material mostly depending on the economic benefits for the value chain actors concerned. Recycling rates for major industrial metals – steel, aluminium, copper, etc. – and paper are exceeding 50% which suggest the highest economic benefits for this type of waste. Plastic recycling continues to be an economically marginal activity with rates of recycling between 14 and 18% at the global level (OECD, 2018) .

The incineration of any type of waste (e.g. roughly 24% of plastic is currently incinerated) to produce energy is not accounted in the context of this standard as secondary materials recovered. Most types of biomass are unsuitable for recycling (for example, food and fodder or wood for energy), yet progress is possible (for example, by reducing food waste and recycling natural tissues in textiles). Textiles wastes have currently low recycling rates.

Unsuitable wastes for recycling will be out of the scope of this standard. Wastes containing valuable materials represent a source of income especially in the developing economies where a huge amount of the population makes the living through collection and dismantling (2% according to SRI ). In developing countries these practices are mostly done in a non-controlled way under the informal sector. In developing countries about 90% of metals is recycled through informal economic operators.

Customers (business and end consumers) and increasingly concerned about the environmental and social risks associated to materials and products purchased. Traceability approaches help demonstrating compliance and improvements, hence, minimizing reputations risks and, above all, improving the transparency in the value chains with highest sustainability risks associated. Traceability mechanisms for some raw material groups exist such as for metals (conflict minerals regulations and the chain-of-custody standard for aluminium (by the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative) and palm oil . No specific internationally agreed guidance has been developed for recovered materials. Secondary materials recovery – Technical reports – Illustrative example reporting to different type of secondary materials and not only metals Secondary metals recovery (Annex 1) – Illustrative example Circularity rates of metals are increasing over time: recycled aluminium makes about 30% of total aluminium consumed, recycled copper makes 35% , steel 35% and lead 45%.

The most rapidly growing waste stream globally is e-waste. Recycling of metals, such as aluminium, copper and gold found in waste, e.g. resulting from electronic and electrical equipment (e-waste), cars, ships, packaging materials or construction activities, is a rapidly growing economic activity worldwide. The amount of e-waste is expected to increase to 52.2 million metric tonnes, or 6.8 kg/inh, by 2021 (Ewaste monitor 2017).

While informal workers in developing countries successfully achieve high collection rates compared to those in industrialized economies, this occurs at high environmental and social costs.

Informal sector (Annex 2) - Illustrative example

Their often inappropriate recycling practices, releasing pollutants into the air, soil and water, combined with poor working conditions and poor health and safety practices, create significant negative impacts on workers, communities and the environment. Social hotspots in the informal sector recycling activities in developing countries include unhealthy and non-safe working conditions, child labour, corruption (see section below on ‘informal sector).

While formal operators handle final processing of wastes (e.g. metallurgical processing) more efficiently than the informal sector, the latter has proven to be more efficient at collecting and preparing waste that contains valuable materials (e.g. through manual processing). Thus, the informal sector plays a critical role in recycling.

Furthermore, a growing number of formal recyclers want to tap into the potential of increasing secondary materials recovery, both in volume and quality. As a consequence, competition on waste streams is emerging between the informal and formal sectors. More and more waste is flowing from the informal sector to formal recyclers. However, this does not happen in a structured and organized way due to a lack of guidance and authoritative supporting frameworks. Consider the following (for the International Standard):

What problem does this document solve?

The application of the framework to be developed as International Standard contributes to inclusive and sustainable recycling, targeting activities in developing countries.

The framework bases on five principles and their respective objectives.

The principles cover:

1. Healthy and safe working conditions

2. Communities resilience and inclusiveness

3. Environmental protection and resource conservation

4. Enhancing materials recovery

5. Mitigation of social risks

By strengthening inclusiveness e.g. of informal workers in the value chain, inequality gaps will be reduced as well as healthier and safer working conditions created (principles 1 & 2). Through sustainable recycling, worst practices that severely harm the environment and the human health will be prevented (principle 3).

Moreover, economic operators applying the requirements, will be able to continuously increase the recovery (principle 4) and improve at (principle 4), facility and supply chain levels, and reduce nonlegal- compliance risks (principle 5) and reduce / mitigate related social risks.. Traceability requirements for secondary materials fills the gap. They are consistent and complements existing traceability mechanisms for raw materials (see in the background part).

Value chain actors are addressed through a life cycle perspective: collectors, refurbishes/repairers, dismantlers, (pre-)treatment, traders, producers and consumers.

Materials’ life cycle from the perspective of environmental, social and economic impacts cover the:

• Re-use or refurbish/repair of products

• Collection of obsolete/end-of-life products

• Removal of components with valuable materials for treatment

• Treatment for recovery of valuable materials

• Disposal of waste components and fractions • Trading of valuable materials recovered

• Production of new products

Is there a verified market need for the proposal?

Recent international developments such as the OECD Responsible Business Conduct (RBC), conflict minerals regulations, the industries assimilation of the circular economy concept, as well as national regulations are increasingly requiring ethical business behaviour, which among others demand for an increased and sustainable use of secondary materials in supply chains and provide a basis for the growth of recycling markets. For example, the market of secondary metals is significant and has a share of 30% of the global demand for metals.

In the absence of regulations or due to their poor enforcement, international economic operators are applying ad-hoc sustainability criteria and approaches to ensure the supply of secondary materials needed to cover the demand. Guidance and harmonization through an internationally acknowledged sustainability framework are required.

Increasingly, producers and customers are requiring for evidence of compliance with local regulations and international best practices. Thus, it will be prevented the general practice of mixing materials of dubious origin mixed with formally produced and traded which hides critical social and environmental impacts especially in countries with weak laws enforcement.

Concerning the specific uptake of the ISO IWA 19: 2017, a Pilot Testing was conducted in about ten companies and more than 20 associations or informal individuals. A report on the feasibility of the ISO IWA 19:2017 is available here:

https://www.sustainable-recycling.org/reports/pilot-testing-report-guidance-principles-for-thesustainable- management-of-secondary-metals/

Moreover, as part of the dissemination efforts of the ISO IWA 19:2017, WRFA had bought 200 ISO copies. 75% of them have been handed over to key interested potential users worldwide targeting those from developing countries.

Finally, it is worthwhile to note that the ISO IWA 19:2017 has been adopted by two countries as national standards: ICONTEC in Colombia and INEN in Ecuador with broad dissemination within these countries and serving the Spanish-speaking region.

What value will the document bring to end-users? 

Targeted beneficiaries are economic operators involved in the recovery of secondary materials in any part of the world targeting subsistence activities in developing and emerging economies, who are highly vulnerable to environmental and socio-economic impacts, including child labour and occupational hazards due to uncontrolled practices and poor working conditions. Anticipated benefits for vulnerable groups are the improved safety at work and improved health outcomes for workers and their families and prevention of child labour.

Potential benefits for economic operators involved in formal recycling activities, as well as for producers and traders of secondary materials, include:

— reduced risk of non-compliance with legal requirements; applicable laws and regulations may require that recycled materials fulfil environmental and social criteria in line with the guidance principles.

— increased revenue through improved market access and securing longer-term contracts “business to business” and “business to consumer”, who may give preferential treatment to enterprises providing materials and products that are compliant with the guidance principles;

— improved and more transparent management systems;

— secured access to secondary material resources;

— improved access to funding and credit from financial institutions willing to mitigate risks by requiring compliance with the guidance principles;

— demonstrated commitment to sustainability* along their value chains. End-users of this document include economic operators of secondary materials value chains, including those engaged in the informal sector.

— traceability of compliance along the value chain.

*This includes support to the Sustainable Development Goals, notably, poverty alleviation (SDG1), decent working conditions (SDG8), reduced (gender) inequalities (SDGs 5 and 10), responsible consumption and production (SDG12), climate actions (SDG13), among others