International Organisation of Standardisation (ISO) develop and publish international standards to ensure the quality, safety, and efficiency of products, services, and systems.

For Australia and New Zealand Recycling Platform (ANZRP), this is important to us because we continuously aim to hold ourselves to a high standard when it comes to responsible recycling.

ANZRP are certified to three ISO standards: Quality (ISO9000), Environmental (ISO14000) and Safety (ISO45000). This means that for:

Quality: we work more efficiently and reduce failures.
Environmental: we help reduce environmental impacts, reduce waste and are more sustainable.
Safety: we help reduce accidents in the workplace.

ANZRP undergoes an external annual audit conducted by our independent auditor Compass and has maintained these certifications consecutively for over six years.

ANZRP has a complex and comprehensive management system, which is maintained and implemented by its Compliance Team. This system enables ANZRP to maintain a high standard in its service offering to its Members whilst fulfilling its role as a co-regulatory arrangement under the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme (NTCRS).

What goes into maintaining ISO certifications?

ANZRP maintains an integrated Quality, Safety and Environment (QSE) management system. It uses the ‘Mango’ software platform to schedule and monitor completion of all required activities to ensure the system is maintained, implemented, reviewed and updated. This includes reviewing the overall system to ensure it reflects our current operations, ensure that procedures and instructions are followed, and to continually review and update documents to adapt to changes over time.

Activities to enable the above include internal audits, management reviews, external audits of recyclers, collection sites and logistics providers, recording and investigating incidents and corrective actions. It is most important to ensure good record keeping to maintain a body of evidence to show that ANZRP walks its talk in implementing the management system consistently across its operations.

The audit – including extension of scope

Preparing evidence before the audit is an important practice to ensure the audit runs smoothly. The most recent recertification audit, commenced in October 2023, lasted for two days (one day in the office, the other day remotely to review evidence and interview staff), and concluded in November with a virtual walkthrough of a TechCollect event we ran for one of our Members. The audit also covered an extension of the scope of our management system to cover our work in managing member programs in New Zealand. Pleasingly, the audit went very well, and the auditor did not raise any non-conformances or observations.

ANZRP are proud to be certified to these three ISO standards and strive to maintain these certifications in years to come.