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Action in progress
REGIONE LOMBARDIA ALSO TAKES PART IN THE NATIONAL WORKING TABLE OF CONSULTATION FOR THE DEFINITION OF GUIDELINES IN THE FIELD OF MANAGEMENT OF DISCARDED MEDICAL EQUIPMENT
After the successful meeting held in November 2015 during Ecomondo, the national working table of consultation for the definition of guidelines in the field of management of discarded medical equipment continued with two meetings occurred in Milan on February 24th between the project partners and “Environment, Energy and Sustainable Development” and “Health” sectors of Regione Lombardia.
The regional legislation concerning the discarded property assets by medical and social facilities (LR 33/2009 and DGR no. X/2637 of 2014) was the main subject of the discussion, being a fundamental step in the analysis of existing regulations and critical issues related to their application. Regione Lombardia, as well as other Italian regions, has legislated in this sector, but to date there is an extreme nationwide unevenness. In fact, the issue of necessary permits to carry out the preparation for re-use activities, planned by the Italian transposition of the European Directives on waste and WEEE, is still difficult due to the lack of national ministerial decrees to implement article 80 paragraph 2-bis of Legislative Decree no. 152/2006.
What emerged from the meeting has therefore confirmed the need of a direct involvement of the Italian Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea in order to push for the issue of national guidelines that could facilitate the implementation of a system as to allow a regeneration of discarded medical equipment and their wider reuse.
4th STEERING COMMITTEE: HERE IS THE STATE OF PROGRESS AND ALL UPCOMING EVENTS!
On June 22nd , 2016 all the partners of the Life-MED project (Cauto, Legambiente Lombardia, University of Brescia, Medicus Mundi Attrezzature, Atelier Fara Frontiere) met in Brescia for the 4th Steering Committee during which several aspects concerning the project progress have been discussed, both from the technical and financial point of view.
The B7 action, regarding the application of the integrated system in Romania and Eastern Europe, and the B8 action, concerning the organization of the consultation table for definition of guidelines in the field of discarded equipment, have been the mainly discussed implementation actions.
About the revision of the equipment and their subsequent donation, some shipments of equipment to health facilities in the city of Kaunas in Lithuania and to the refugees emergency mission Asklepios at the Isle of Lesbos have been in particular reported.
Moreover, during the meeting all present partners have read and discussed the reply letter written by the European Union about the Mid-Term Report, undertaking to provide all the required documentation and to implement any corrective action.
The meeting was finally also an opportunity to prepare concretely upcoming informative and dissemination events provided within D actions, such as the next visit of the monitor and the next Steering Committee (both scheduled for November 2016 at the headquarters of Atelier Fara Frontiere) and the seminar at the Faculty of Clinic Engineering of the University of Bucharest (Romania); the headquarters of CAUTO Cooperative in Brescia (Italy) has been instead chosen as the location for the international workshop scheduled for January 2017.
Coming soon
RAEE: LIFE PROJECTS WILL MEET IN GENOA (ITALY) AND LAY THE BASIS FOR FUTURE COLLABORATION
As part of the networking activities between LIFE projects focused on WEEE and on logistic solutions regarding their disposal, the Municiplaity of Genoa (leading of the Weeenmodels project) has scheduled for October 2016 an international seminar, in which Life-MED project also will take part, as well as main stakeholders.
Aspects of the logistics necessary for the achievement of targets set by the European legislation on the collection rate and/or re-use and the most suitable way for a broad involvement of stakeholders are just some of the topics that will be discussed during the meeting. The workshop, in fact, will also be an important opportunity to exchange information relating to the reference policy frameworks, to hand over knowledge and “best practices” and to lay the foundations for mutual involvement for future projects in the light of the activities and results achieved so far and which will be discussed during the seminar.
More information will be available soon on the website www.life-med-equipment.eu.
Best Practices
WEEENMODELS PROJECT: A NEW AND EFFICIENT MODEL OF REVERSE LOGISTIC OF WEEE
The correct disposal and possible recovery of electrical and electronic equipment constitute now a sector which can bring significant benefits to the environment: tons of secondary raw materials, in fact, can be extracted from the recycling of WEEE, with a considerable environmental and economic advantages.
European Directives 2002/96 /EC and 2012/19 /EU, which introduced a European collection system for this type of waste, have greatly contributed to the launch of specific initiatives to improve the collection system. The Weeenmodels project started therefore precisely with the objective to define a new model of “Reverse Logistics” of WEEE and in particular of small appliances; the experimentation, which started in a pilot district in the city of Genoa (Italy), will extend the strategic role of distributors and transporters through their direct involvement, in order to increase the WEEE collection rate to exceed targets set by EU and to triple the rate per capita registered in 2013. The project will allow more generally to reduce the amount of waste, through the reconditioning of a significant portion of suitable WEEE, and to reduce pollution, minimizing the disposal of WEEE in the municipal waste in order to prevent the release of pollutants into the environment and the contamination of non-hazardous waste with toxic substances. Finally, an important part of the project concerns also the optimization of the collection and transport services and, more broadly, the increase of the whole system efficiency through the ability to track down the location of WEEE during the process of disposal (user, distributor, collection platform, treatment center) in order to prevent their entry into the illegal market.
The project, started in September 2013 and financed by the European LIFE Programme – Environment, involves the Municipality of Genoa with technical partners (Amiu Genoa, TBridge SpA, Agenzia di Sviluppo GAL Genovese) and scientific partners (UNIMORE and ISW) and it will end in December 2016, providing important information that will be helpful to understand how to optimally replicate the experience in other Italian and European cities.
More information is available on the website www.weeenmodels.eu.