Take It Back! 2001

WASTE AGE STAFF

April 18-19, 2001 National Airport Holiday Inn - Arlington, Va. The Take it Back! Conference focuses on "extended producer responsibility" initiatives around the globe. There are five draft "take-back" and design directives including electronics take-back requirements and heavy metals bans in electronics and batteries, as well as amendments to the Directive on Packaging Waste.

Wednesday, April 18 International Plenary

- Keynote Address: Recycling Directives in the European Union: An Outlook

Karl-Heinz Florenz, Member, European Parliament, Environment Committee

Florenz will explain the status and outlook of the main recycling directives in Europe: packaging, batteries and three new electronics directives. The draft amendments to the existing batteries directive would ban cadmium batteries. Another directive would ban heavy metals in most electronics products, with certain exemptions.

- Green Dot: Spreading Beyond Europe

Bernard Herodin, Managing Director, Pro Europe

Can a group use the Green Dot license without a take-back law? Pro Europe is looking to license the Green Dot outside Europe, and a new licensing organization is planned for 2001.

- Take-back Laws in Europe: Which Countries to Look Out For

Stephen Oliver, Consultant, KPMG U.K.

A discussion of various take-back initiatives in Europe, plus a report on enforcement of take-back directives.

- Plastics Recycling in Europe: A Progress Report?

Andrea Ecker, EPRO, Vienna, Austria

Ecker is director of a new umbrella organization for six of the plastics collection groups that were formed to guarantee markets for collected plastic packaging in Europe. Ecker will provide a brief overview of what EPRO is doing and some insights on plastics recycling under Austrian law.

- Eastern Europe: Making Progress

Michal Korkozowicz, Executive Director, EKO-PAK, Warsaw, Poland

Seven countries in Eastern Europe - Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and the Czech Republic - are working toward enacting laws equivalent to the EU Directives.

- International Packaging Mandates: Dealing with New Twists

Victor Bell, Environmental Packaging International, Jamestown, R.I.

Bell discusses the status of the Essential Requirements in Europe, what to expect next on fee increases, and other practical tips for coping with the patchwork of packaging legislation.

- Pacific Rim: Australia's New Packaging Covenant

Gerard van Rijswijk, Chief Executive, National Packaging Covenant Industry Association

Van Rijswik will provide the latest on implementation of the new packaging covenant in Australia.

- Latin America: The Update

Keith Ripley, Temas Actuales, Alexandria, Va.

Ripley will discuss recent information on packaging and battery take-back laws recently enacted in the main countries of Latin America, and what to expect in terms of implementation and enforcement.

- Canada: EPR Initiatives on the Move

Assistant Deputy Minister, Environment Canada (Tentative)

Corporations Supporting Recycling in Ontario have applied to become the licensee for the Green Dot in Canada. Will this have implications for the United States? Meanwhile, Quebec has become the first province to enact a full producer responsibility law, which will include packaging. Stakeholders in Ontario continue to struggle over EPR policy.

Thursday, April 19 Break-Outs Durables and Electronics Recycling

Chairman: David Thompson, Panasonic U.S.

- How Electronics Collection Groups Work

Filip Geerts, President, RECUPEL-ICT, Brussels, Belgium

Geerts will explain the inner workings of electronics collection organizations in Europe.

- Status of Technology to Recycle Plastics in Electronics

Cynthia Murphy, Research Scientist, University of Texas, Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, Austin, Texas

Murphy will provide a technical overview of what technologies currently exist to recover different plastics from the electronics and related durable waste streams. She will review technologies worldwide, and provide analysis of what is practical now and what it may cost in the future.

Packaging and Plastics: Still Controversial in 2001

- Plastics Collection Challenges in Europe

Andrea Ecker, EPRO, Vienna, Austria

- Solving the U.S. Plastics Collection Problem

Pierre Ferrari, Chairman, Business and Environmentalists Allied for Recycling, Atlanta U.S. Plastics Recycler - TBA

- The Plastics Recycling Problem: A Canadian Environmental View

Helen Spiegelman, SPEC, Vancouver, British Columbia Case Histories

- Reducing Compliance Costs on Packaging Take-Back through Design and Database Use

Mark Lesky, Microsoft Bernard John, Wrigley's

- Pallets: Coping with Export, Import and Recycling Issues

Robert Peters, Technical Resources Director, National Wooden Pallet Container Association, Arlington, Va.

- Transport Packaging - TBA

For more information, contact Michele Raymond, Raymond Communications Inc., at (301) 345-4237.