Central Waste Coordination System - ZKS-Abfall

The implementation of the Central Waste Coordination System (called ZKS-Abfall) as the technical infrastructure for the electronic waste records procedure is a flagship initiative of the eGovernment 2.0 program of the German Federal Government.

From 2007 to 2009, IBM Germany worked as general contractor on ZKS-Abfall, with Consist and Governikus ITU contributing their expertise in the electronic implementation of waste management processes. According to the Ordinance on Waste Recovery and Disposal Records (NachwV), as of April 1, 2010, all parties involved in the process of disposal of hazardous waste will be required to maintain electronic records – this applies to waste producers, disposers, and transporters, as well as the responsible government agencies.

The project is based on the law and the Ordinance on the Simplification of Waste Management Monitoring, and has two core objectives:

• the monitoring of waste, particularly in the form of the electronic records procedure for the environmentally sound disposal of waste, should be permanently simplified both for companies affected and for the responsible federal state agencies. At one time, there were about 3 million consignment notes created and used in a costly paper form format every year
• the consistent use of modern IT technology should make the monitoring of compliance with waste disposal law for environmental protection much more efficient than before.

The result led to a win-win situation for all concerned. In this context, the project took on a pilot function for environmental protection too.

The organization and ongoing operation were the responsibility of the Länder, represented here by the "Working Group of the Federal States on Shared Waste IT Systems" (GADSYS) through its office, the Information Coordinating Office for Waste (IKA). The project is breaking new ground in many ways for eGovernment in Germany:

• comprehensive collaboration between the Federal Republic and the German federal states (Länder) for a common solution in the sense of a one-stop government
• definition of common standards for data exchange between all participants (Federal Government, Länder, and companies) through a shared portal of ZKS-Abfall
• mass application for electronic signatures within the framework of eGovernment
• use of the Federal Government's basic eGovernment components

The Federal Office for Goods Transport (BAG) was officially included in the project for the subproject of administrative and legal cooperation in the business area of the Federal Ministry for Transport, Building, and Urban Affairs. The BAG regularly inspects trucks carrying hazardous waste. The subproject for administrative and legal cooperation in transport inspections allowed BAG inspectors direct access to the relevant data for the electronic records procedure in the ASYS systems managed for the federal states by Governikus ITU, as well as to the descriptions of hazardous waste.