Page 32 - Implementation of ITU-T international standards for sustainable management of waste electrical and electronic equipment: The path to a circular economy in Costa Rica

Implementation of ITU-T international standards for sustainable management of waste
electrical and electronic equipment: The path to a circular economy in Costa Rica

As the WEEE management is a cross- Figure 7 - CEGIRE membership
cutting issue, the Integral Management of
Electronic Waste Regulations (Executive
Decree 35933, 2010) provided for the
creation of the Executive Committee for the
Integral Management of Waste Electrical and
Electronic Equipment (CEGIRE), whose role
is to implement SINAGIRE; its membership
is shown in Figure 7. In the case of UCCAEP,
the representative is Intel, for the Compliance
Units it is ASEGIRE and ACEPESA is the
NGOs’ representative. It is important to note
that they have been the representatives in
2021. However, they may change over time.

An important product developed by CEGIRE is the Guide for the Management of Waste
Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Ministry of Health, 2016).

The Guide is addressed to all stakeholders and sectors involved in WEEE integral management:
generators or final consumers (inter alia, households, municipalities, schools, hospitals,
public institutions, private companies, commerce, industry); authorized WEEE managers;
producers, importers, and trading companies. The guide covers the steps for WEEE sustainable
management: reception and temporary storage at points of sale or collection, storage,
transportation, dismantling, and export.

Another important regulatory framework achievement is the establishment of Compliance Units
under the Integral Management of Electronic Waste Regulations (Executive Decree 35933,
2010). A Compliance Unit (CU) is an operational legal structure that enables the fulfilling of
the principle of extended producer responsibility (EPR), the national technical, health, and
environmental guidelines, to ensure sustainable waste management.

Figure 8 shows the implementation scope and the main objectives of the regulations applied
to articulate and guide WEEE management.

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