The electronic waste records procedure

Governikus ITU - Interface between environmental protection, waste management and IT

ITU has been working at the interface between environmental protection, waste management and IT for almost 30 years and has now been an integral part of Governikus as a subsidiary since February 2024. How does that fit? Better than you might think!

It all began with a series of scandals: from the late 1980s into the 1990s, reports of illegally disposed pollutants dominated the media. Dioxins, pesticides, heavy metals, waste oils and even asbestos ended up in landfills, waterways and other countries. This "hazardous waste" not only pollutes the environment, but is also harmful to health.

In order to prevent illegal disposal of this kind, the Ordinance on Waste Disposal Records came into force in 1996. Each transport of hazardous waste was accompanied by a consignment bill - with 5 carbon copies. In total, up to 3 million consignment bills were (and still are) issued every year. An enormous formal effort.

Record keeping thanks to the electronic waste records procedure

Since 2010, these records have been kept exclusively electronically. All parties involved are obliged to participate in the electronic waste records procedure (eANV). The waste records procedure is used to track the path of waste from generation to disposal. The parties involved are producers, transporters, disposers, dealers and brokers as well as the competent authorities. The electronic records procedure makes it possible to exchange data digitally and inform authorities. At the same time, decisions by the authorities can be transmitted digitally to the parties required to provide proof.

The special feature of the eANV process is that the parties involved complete the XML documents one after the other and sign them electronically with a qualified signature before they are sent on. An electronic consignment bill is created successively. Each new layer includes the previous one with the electronic signature. In this way, the carbon copy paper process of the consignment bill with 5 carbon copies is reproduced 1:1 electronically and significantly improved: each change or addition can now be clearly assigned to a time and a person.

As a new subsidiary of Governikus, ITU develops and maintains the key components on the official side and provides the Modawi product to the business community. The eANV is an asynchronous, secure procedure with clearly identifiable users, binding acknowledgements of receipt and encrypted communication. OSCI and Governikus COM Tauri are used for the exchange of documents between the tens of thousands of waste management stakeholders and the authorities.

And this also explains why the ITU is a perfect fit for Governikus: The expertise in secure communication and OSCI that has grown on both sides over the years complements each other perfectly. This will enable us to work together on the end-to-end digitalization of public administration in the future. Challenges can thus be tackled in various segments of e-government.