SINGAPORE, August 29, 2023 - New regulations that ban or severely restrict international shipments of electronic waste, or e-waste, will take effect in January 2025. As an international leader in IT asset disposition and technology lifecycle solutions, SK tes advises businesses and helps to prepare for the new landscape with solutions that comply with the complex new rules.
The e-waste regulations stem from the Basel Convention treaty, which controls the movement of hazardous and other wastes across the 191 signatory countries' borders. The treaty is intended to reduce how much waste is generated, encourage the management of waste near where it is produced, and prevent waste from being dumped in less-developed countries.
In a June 2022 meeting in Geneva, the countries adopted new provisions that require hazardous or non-hazardous e-waste from cross-border shipping to go through prior informed consent and an export/import permit process, requiring notification by the exporting country and consent by the importing country before shipping. The United States has not signed the treaty, which creates significant roadblocks for U.S. companies. Before one of the 191 participating countries can accept U.S. e-waste, they must negotiate an individual treaty with the United States.
Updates from the Basel Convention are adopted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), another international policy group. However, the new Basel e-waste rules are in limbo at the OECD after a member country's objection, resulting in countries potentially needing to interpret and set their own export and import rules. Technical guidelines have been adopted by the Convention's parties, but companies will encounter difficulties when dealing with the Convention's manual permit application and approval process, which still depends on manual forms.
Companies will need to find guidance and partnerships with an expert in the IT reverse logistics landscape to deal with strict regulations and conflicting opinions on cross-border shipments of both functional IT equipment and e-waste.
To learn more about how to navigate this complex e-waste latest rule, check out our whitepaper " Steering safely through e-waste legislation".
"At SK tes, we are maintaining a watch of regulatory developments internationally to ensure that we provide the right compliance advice to our clients as change happens," said Alvin Piadasa, group sustainability director at SK tes. "It is essential for businesses to manage to limit reputational harm, manage IT asset disposition sustainably, and have surety that all downstream tiers are complying with such regulations."
"It can sometimes be a black hole now when it comes to transparency of where IT assets end up following local regulations," added Piadasa. "The most ideal solution is to use local recycling facilities with high levels of certification such as the R2 standard. SK tes has the largest global network of owned-and-operated facilities and over 30 R2 certified facilities. That is unsurpassed by any competitor and complies with the letter of the Basel Convention."
SK tes is committed to going beyond industry norms and regulatory requirements to fulfil its three foundational pillars, or "3 P's": protecting privacy, brand, intellectual property, and data through an integrated suite of asset transformation services; preserving human health and the environment through responsible consumption and production that minimizes the use of scarce and valuable materials; and providing safe and diverse workplaces for people. For more information, visit our website.
About SK tes
Since our formation in 2005, SK tes has grown to become a global leader in sustainable technology services and bespoke solutions that help clients manage the commissioning, deployment, and retirement of IT assets including devices and components.
We provide comprehensive services for technology devices throughout their lifecycles—from deployment to decommissioning to disposition—through to recycling and end-of-life repurposing. This includes innovating new processes to leverage the value locked in assets if they are to be recycled, such as our proprietary lithium battery recycling process, which extracts scarce materials from used batteries at purity rates high enough that they can be reused in the manufacturing supply chain.
We have made it our mission to make a decade of difference by securely, safely, and sustainably transforming and repurposing one billion kilograms of assets by 2030. Our 40 owned facilities across 21 countries offer unmatched service-level consistency, consistent commercials, lower logistics costs, in-region local compliance experts, support in local time zones and languages, and expertise of the global transboundary movement.
