The new accreditation applies to the period 2024-2028 and sets the terms of our operations over the next five years. Naturally, we’ll continue to build on the successful collection and recycling of household packaging of the past thirty years, but we have also formulated a number of new focuses, such as the prevention and reuse of packaging. We will also take on extended producer responsibility for litter on behalf of our members. To do so, we plan to collaborate on the ground as much as possible with municipalities and intermunicipal companies.
Responding to social trends
The accreditation sets the ground rules for our collaboration with intermunicipal companies and waste partners. Our new accreditation offers many opportunities to respond to new social trends, including alternative collection systems for paper/cardboard and PMD. For example, in some urban environments where there are lots of high-rise buildings or in traffic-calmed residential areas, door-to-door collection is being replaced by a delivery system where people bring their waste to underground containers. From now on, we will reimburse the actual costs for these delivery systems, provided that they completely replace door-to-door collection and the costs are no more than double the standard cost for door-to-door collection. We are also continuing to monitor quality, because experience shows that it is harder to control this with underground collection systems.
There is also a budget available to intermunicipal companies for investments in their collection infrastructure, such as the purchase and installation of underground or above-ground collection containers, cameras and sensors for bottle bank sites and individual containers for paper/cardboard. Finally, the PMD sorting bonus will be reintroduced for intermunicipal companies with a residue percentage (measured as “citizen sorting error”) below 12%. In this way we will increase the focus on the quality of collected PMD, which has deteriorated sharply recently.
Costs and reimbursements in line with reality
A new accreditation is always a good opportunity to bring costs and reimbursements into line with the changing reality on the ground. A good example of this is the adjusted distribution key for costs and revenue relating to paper and cardboard collected from households. This flow consists partly of packaging – for which Fost Plus is responsible – and partly of newspapers, magazines and printed matter. Because of the ever increasing share of packaging, the accreditation states that the cost split between Fost Plus and the intermunicipal companies will move from 44/56% to 60/40% and the revenue split from 32/68% to 53/47%.
In addition, the reimbursement for project monitoring costs will be adjusted to reflect current realities, and a working group will be set up for reimbursement on a cost-plus basis. There is also provision for reimbursement of the operating costs of the recycling parks, including the remuneration of park employees and general operation costs.
Action plan under development
The final text of the new accreditation was published at the end of February, after which we immediately got to work on the practical implementation, as most measures arising from the accreditation came into effect on 1 January 2024; however, we will take an extra month for a number of deadlines because the accreditation was issued later. Concerning the article on nitrous oxide, the different parties still need to liaise in order to arrive at a workable solution.
The new distribution key for paper/cardboard has now been integrated into MyFost, meaning that all new POs and invoices are up to date. Other adjustments will require a little more time, preparation and in some cases additional clarification. We are currently working on an action plan, which we want to roll out by the summer after consulting with the intermunicipal companies. Your account manager will get in touch with you around that time to discuss the approach as we move forward.
More information
If you have any questions in the meantime about the new accreditation and what it means for your organisation, contact your account manager or our customer service by phoning +32 2 775 03 50 or emailing us at fostplus@fostplus.be.
