RUAG receives fridge recycling quality mark

The Environment Division of Swiss company RUAG Components received the RAL quality mark from Martin Stadler, vice chairman of the RAL Quality Assurance Association for the demanufacture of refrigeration equipment containing CFCs.

For RUAG, the award of the highly prized quality mark establishes the best possible basis for the company’s business activities in an international market that has grown in relevance since the EU’s WEEE directive was transposed into the national laws of Switzerland’s neighbours: Austria, France, Germany and Italy.

The new RUAG plant, which uses SEG technology, went on stream at the end of last year. After a relatively short period of operational trials lasting a mere six weeks, the plant underwent testing and assessment by RAL test engineers. RUAG’s fridge demanufacturing operations met all the requirements of the RAL GZ 728 quality assurance scheme covering Step I operations, Step II operations, process monitoring and logistics.

Secretary to the RAL Quality Assurance Association, Christoph Becker, was also present at the award ceremony and emphasized that after having studied the test report, the vote by members of Association’s quality committee to award the quality mark to RUAG was unanimous. Becker was pleased that RAL’s minimum quality standards had been met after such a short start-up phase.

RUAG is licensed as a recycling company by the Swiss S.EN.S Foundation (Stiftung Entsorgung Schweiz) and SWICO, the Swiss Association for Information, Communication and Organization Technology. In its work with these two organizations, RUAG is the only waste management company in Switzerland that can offer the entire spectrum of industrial demanufacturing services for waste electrical and electronic equipment from a single site.