Teli: “Operators still little aware of the rules governing the business”

“The waste market of professional electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) does not work today, because the operators do not know the standard that manages the entire business in the sector. I am speaking of article 24 of legislative decree 49/2014 “. He doesn’t mince words, Luciano Teli, managing director of Erion Professionalthe consortium of the Erion system dedicated to manufacturers who only place professional electrical and electronic equipment on the market.

What does Article 24 say?

“That the user, the owner of the asset, when he has to discard it can contact the manufacturer of the equipment to exercise the right of return in two specific cases. The first is the so-called “empty for full”, that is “one against zero”: if the user has purchased after 2011 an equipment that no longer works today, he can return it. And the end of the story. The second is the so-called “one on one”, ie the user can return both the old equipment and the new one that he has just purchased when it becomes waste, perhaps after ten years. The latter case, however, which hardly occurs today ”.

Let’s get to the point …

“Beyond the specific difficulty for the user to contact the manufacturer directly to obtain the satisfaction of the right of return, there has never been a thorough knowledge of decree 49 by the world of professionals. In addition, upstream, there is also a technical problem to unravel ”.

Which?

“The world of professional equipment distribution has two macro-sectors: the first is represented by the direct sale of the goods between producer and user; the second is represented by the indirect sale of the asset, that is when a manufacturer sells equipment to a distributor who in turn resells it to a user. It is in this specific case that the system does not work because the current legislation does not consider the whole part of the indirect management of the business which has a more substantial economic weight than the direct part of the management of professional equipment “.

Is the professional waste market contestable?

“Yes, because there are many people who try in every way to obtain the greatest number of waste as these contain valuable raw and secondary materials: first of all, because they are purer than those contained in household waste. A phenomenon that inevitably also feeds the black market, especially now with the shortage of raw materials in circulation and the consequent increases. Furthermore, many players operate in the second life market for professional equipment. All this leads to a dispersion of flows which leads to the incomparability of results between the management of domestic and professional equipment “.

Could the solution be a regulatory simplification that makes the professional equipment market more transparent?

“In reality, simplification already exists in paragraph 3 of article 24 of legislative decree 49. However, no one knows about it. In essence, this paragraph says that the manufacturer can decide to invent alternative equipment management systems to the previous scheme that did not work. This is the reason why Erion Professional, for a year now, has developed the Exceed platform which through its systems – for the time being declined on the climate, food and printing sectors – tries to reproduce the values ​​that have worked in the home by adapting them to the professional world “.

Which ones are they?

“First of all, operational simplification. With the Exceed platform, the producer and / or distributor of professional waste can access and submit the withdrawal request which is received and completed by the Erion Consortium. In fact, we go to collect the waste where it is physically as it happens today in the domestic market, thanks to the program agreements signed by the Erion Consortium with the Italian municipalities ”.

Where is the professional waste?

“The challenge of the Consortium is precisely to map the sites where waste should be concentrated at a national level, naturally including the indirect sector of professional waste, consisting mainly of installers, large distributors or logistic sorting centers. Sites that can become sampling points and that the current legislation has not considered up to now “.

How many potential distribution and logistic sorting centers are there to look out for?

“We don’t have a precise number but I can confirm that there are many. The site mapping work is continuing: those selected by the Erion Consortium, together with the producers, can directly access the Exceed platform. For the climate system, we recover the equipment from the plumbing and heating installers; for the printing system, from distributors and logistic sorting centers; for the Exceed food system, from large-scale distribution. The next step was to train operators to bring out borderline behaviors, offering them free registration in the simplified register of managers, or an app to guide them in proper waste management “.

Does the Exceed system have a cost?

“The producer voluntarily taxes himself ex ante through the imposition of an eco contribution to allow the Consortium to scout waste in the area and achieve the set objectives”.

Which ones are they?

“Given that the total WEEE collection target set by the European Union is 65% of the amount placed on the market. For professional waste, however, we must make some distinctions. After a careful analysis, we have established that the targets of the Exceed systems are: in printing, the maximum stock that can be reached is 44%, which is equivalent to 100% of the potential target. Now our multi-year development plan plans to extend Exceed up to 25 homogeneous industries, within which there is a large number of manufacturers ”.

How many producers are part of the Erion Consortium ecosystem for professional WEEE? And what is your market share today?

“About a thousand producers operate exclusively in the world of professional WEEE and the overall market share is around 50%”.