Volume 10, Issue 5
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September / October 2013
Security Shredding Storage News
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R2 Evolution
R2:2013—The Next Generation of the R2 Standard—Raises the Bar for Electronics Recyclers’ Quality, Environmental, and Health and Safety Practices
www.SSMWEXPO.com See pages 8-9 for details
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By John Lingelbach
PRSRT STD U.S. Postage
PAID
Mentor, OH Permit No. 2
n 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Washington, D.C.) convened a group of stakeholders to create a set of best practices that certifying bodies could use to assess electronics recyclers’ environmental and health and safety efforts. Over a threeyear period, the group of representatives from government regulatory agencies, original equipment manufacturers, electronics recyclers and refurbishers, trade associations (including ISRI), and nongovernmental organizations developed the Responsible Recycling (R2) Practices for Use in Accredited Certification Programs for Electronics Recyclers. In 2009, the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (Milwaukee) developed Accreditation Rule 34, which gave certification bodies—the entities that conduct audits and issue certifications—the ability to become accredited to certify electronics recyclers to the R2 standard. In 2010, the founding group established the nonprofit R2 Solutions (Boulder, Colo.) to administer and promote the standard. Since the standard’s debut, more than 275 companies around the world have achieved R2 certification. R2 was never intended to be a static set of practices, so R2 Solutions convened another multi-stakeholder group, the R2 Technical Advisory Committee, in 2011 to improve the standard based on input from its members as well as public comments. The result is a nextgeneration version of the standard, R2:2013,
which reinforces and builds on the foundation of the previous R2 certification program. R2 Solutions expects R2:2013 to strengthen the overall program by providing an even greater and more explicit emphasis on quality and raising the bar for several key R2 requirements. We have created the following Q&A to explain how and why the updated standard came about and describe the main differences between the old and new versions.
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hy did R2 need to be revised? The multi-stakeholder group that created the original R2 standard—now called R2:2008—
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Inside This Issue
4 Mobile Shredders Offered Certification by MSA
6 Social Media, Compliance and Risk Management
10 50-Year Privacy Rule Protects Decedent Health Information
13 Electronics Recycling Produces Jobs, Opens Revenue Streams