The Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITERD) has recently published Order TED/646/2023, which establishes the criteria to determine when thermoplastic waste subjected to mechanical treatments and intended for plastic product manufacturing ceases to be waste in accordance with Law 7/2022.

The ministerial order establishes that producers or importers must respectively set up or require a management system that enables them to demonstrate, their compliance with the legislative text requirements and that this system must be certified by an accredited certification body in accordance with Regulation No. 765/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council, which implies, in the Spain's case, to have ENAC accreditation.

This ministerial order is in addition to previous ones relating to recovering other materials such as granulated rubber and rubber powder, recovered paper and cardboard, waste oils and MARPOL waste, for which accredited certification was also required. Therefore, it is important to highlight that, while, in the first European regulations published, management system assessment could also be done by environmental inspectors accredited for the EMAS regulation, on this occasion and, since 2021, only certification bodies accredited for this activity are admitted. Each standard sets out the specific elements for the required management system: admission of materials, sampling, treatment processes, supervision and control, quality of the resulting product, necessary inspection, etc. that makes it different from a standard quality management system and justifies that its certification must also be appropriate and adjusted to the purpose pursued.

ENAC want both the companies affected by these ministerial orders and the certification bodies and the competent authorities to be aware of the fact that, at present, there are no accredited bodies for this activity, despite the fact that ENAC developed, in line with the indications of EA in 2013, the corresponding accreditation scheme (described in document RDE 10).

For more information about this scheme or how to start this activity's accreditation process, contact Edelio Gago, ENAC's Head of Certification and Inspection department.