A step by step guide -
Kolekt certificates for operators
Kolekt Certificates (KXCs) - a step by step guide
Watch the video
on how to register and create certificates on Kolekt Exchange (coming soon)
Join as an Operator —> https://operator.kolekt.com
If you are a waste management company such as a recycler, MRF, a waste-to-energy plant, a sorting station, and aggregator, buyback center, even an association of waste pickers, or a private collection company you can register with us as an OPERATOR.
The Kolekt Dashboard
You can ..
Click the Exchange menu item, which will take you to the Certificates dashboard.
Monitor Kolekt App transactions
Watch this Kolekt App video or read about Kolekt Dashboard hereEdit and review your Operator profile
Your operator profile (top right or click here) is where you show Brands and buyers of certificates what your waste management operation is: your capacity, the materials that you buy and process, your services, equipment, and company audit license and registration documents. Views will have to get your approval to view your documents, they are confidential.
Create a new certificate
Getting started
DIY: The Kolekt Exchange is as simple as possible so that you can issue your own Certificates, without the need of consultants or brokers.
Tonnes sold: A Kolekt Certificate is based on the number of tonnes that you have processed and sold. Output, not input.
One a month: We recommend that you create one certificate per month and per material type, if you handle different materials.
We accept tonnes sold up to 1 year old.
The Certificate
Material Sold & Proof of Sale
Sold tonnes: Add the tonnes sold for that month to the form. These tonnes should equal the totals of the uploaded invoices or receipts. These must correspond with the sales registered in your financial accounts. This may be audited. Certificates can only be for tonnes sold less than 1 year ago. We accept no future tonnes.
Sales Invoices or Receipts: Collect & scan your sales invoices or receipts (per month) for the sold tonnes.
You can upload Max 10 invoices. Or per client make 1 PDF file with multiple invoices.
We recommend that you “black out” or censor the price and value information, keep the quantities (KGs and Tonnes) visible. You can do this with a marker pen on a copy of the invoice, then scan it. Or scan and PDF all the invoices and edit the PDF document with a marker.Buyer name (confidential). Do not type the full name of the buyer, use an acronym instead e.g. VES for Veolia Services so that you, Kolekt and the auditor can guess which buyer it is, without having to open the invoice document.
Invoice date should be the month of the certificate being created.
Auditor Information
Why? Every KXC has had its documents of proof verified by an independent auditor. At least once a year an auditor will randomly check the following:
The proof of sale (invoices or recepits or Kolekt App transactions) are based on real transactions. The auditor will reference the proof of sale document against incoming payments from buyers in your financial accounts and/or transport administration and/or weightslips.
The proof of purchase (purchase invoices or recepits or Kolekt App / traceability software transactions) has to represent the real movement of feedstocks into your operation. The auditor will reference these proofs against your payment administration, weightslips and stock control.
Proof of segregation Since the price of KXCs can vary depending on the feedstock material and its source each certificate should ideally relate to one material type and one source (post-consumer or post-industrial) and one output type (bags, bales, pellets, composites, granules, etc). Read more about pricing below.
Download the Auditor Terms of Reference here.
We recommend that the auditor has experience with auditing container loads at customs or doing material inspections or sampling at factories. Auditors like Control Union, SGS, Bureau Veritas, DNV and TUV have this experience especially if they have completed inspections for the national EPR regulator, a PRO of they have done OBP, PWRS (Verra) and PPRS (PCX) audits. Also consider local auditors with similar experience since they understand the local context better and are sometimes less expensive.
Material Inputs
Tonnes Purchased: Add the total tonnes purchased during the same month as the sales, even though purchases are processed with a lag. This will help ‘timebox’ all inputs and outputs, thereby limiting double counting or skipping tonnes. Usually the total tonnes purchased will be higher than tonnes sold. There will be losses. However, with material in stock you can process and sell more than you had purchased in a given month.
Material. One material is a combination of Main material + post-consumer or post-industrial feedstock. For every new Material (Paper, Glass, eWaste, Plastic, etc) you have to press [+] Add Material. Also Post-consumer and post-industrial feedstock should be seperated.
Losses: Select what has happenend to the unsold tonnes of purchased materials, e.g. still in stock, disposed to landfill, etc.
Upload proof of purchase: Yoou can upload 3 documents of proof of purchase, which correspond to to the Total tonnes purchased. This can come from your traceability or stock control system. It can be audited by the auditor.
Types of Certificates
There are several types of certificates all related to a task done in the waste supply chain. Starting with collection and sorting, then processing waste, recycling then final disposal of any unprocessable waste.
We are also open to issuing certificates for services that mitigate waste such as Reduction, Repair, Refill or Reuse certificates. However since this is new you will have to contact us (email above) to explore how we will prove that mitigation really occurred .
A Certificate is proof of sale or delivery of a specified number of tonnes of waste materials due to:
Collection & sorting
Recycling (conversion of materials)
Processing (cleaning, flaking, baling, co-processing, export)
Disposal (in managed landfills)
Reduction and reuse of waste
The Price of a Certificate
The price of a certificate in USD/tonne, should be
= the true cost of waste collection and delivery to a buyer or end destination
less (-/-)
the price paid for the material by the buyer of the material (buyback center, recycler or end-destination).
The asking price (USD / tonne) of a certificate depends on several internal and external factors.
(1) The base price of a certificate should be the price per tonne needed to cover the gap (if any) in the total cost of waste recovery. If the market price for the waste materials are lower than the true cost of waste recovery, this gap or deficit can be complemented by the price of the certificate. e.g. The true cost of collection and delivery of PET to a recycler is USD 200 per tonne, but the recycler only pays USD 150 per tonne for the PET. By pricing the certificate at USD 60 per tonne the costs are covered and there is a $10 margin (5%) per tonne. At this price it becomes financially attractive to collect and process the waste material. However, if the price paid at destination (e.g. a recycler) is higher than the cost of collection, then the certificate price should be 0 or at least high enough to cover the cost of the annual audit and the Kolekt fee.
Examples of such waste recovery cost deficits are:
waste pickers are paid less per KG than what would constitute a living wage. As a rule of thumb a living wage is 120% of minimum wage,
the waste material has no or little value (examples are glass, MLP, beverage cartons, rubber, textiles, diapers/nappies, construction waste),
the distance between the point of collection and recycling make the transportation costs too expensive,
waste processing and recycling is not available or isn’t commercially attractive (as is often for materials like PVC, EPS, MLP, glass, textiles),
tipping fees at landfill or factories for co-processing or waste to energy add to the waste recovery costs.
(2) The EPR Fee for a material will influence the asking price of certificates. Generally the Certificate price per tonne should be lower than the EPR Fee. Thereby making the purchase of a certificate a cost effective method for a brand to prove its contribution to waste collection and/or recycling.
However, if the EPR Fee per KG is lower than the true cost of waste recovery then there is something seriously wrong with the EPR Fee pricing mechanism. The Fee should be revised upwards to a point where the EPR Fee encourages, or does not discourage, the collection and processing of waste. If the EPR Fee is lower than the recovery cost, it will push down the price of certificates.
If the EPR Fee is higher than the true cost of recovery, then Brands will be encouraged to buy certificates as a cheaper alternative proof of compliance with EPR targets and regulations.
(3) Plastic credits are usually sold in countries with no EPR regulations or where EPR regulations encourage the use of plastic credits. In these countries the certificate price (for plastics only) will probably be slightly lower that the price of a plastic credit (in USD per tonne), because plastic credits should be issued for tonnes that are “additional” to the tonnes collected or recycled in the past. The tonnes collected or processed prior to the plastic credit issuance are called “the baseline”. Since the additional tonnes are usually smaller or equal to the tonnes collected prior to the plastic credit project, the cost of recovering the additional tonnes.
(4) Sharing the revenues of Certificates downstream. If your company issues Certificates and you share the revenues of the certificates downstream, by offering a higher price per KG to your suppliers, then your Certificate price ought to be higher, than if you keep the certificate proceeds for yourself without offering a higher price to your suppliers.
As a guideline, Kolekt recommends that the Certificate proceeds are shared in 3 equal parts of 33% each across the supply chain. Each actor will want a higher portion claiming higher Capex investments (recycling) or higher labour effort (collection), so a simple flat 33% spread avoids endless discussions.
A fair share of certificate proceeds across the supply chain
33% for the recycler/end-destination;
33% for the intermediaries, which includes sorting, baling and transportation; and
33% for the first mile of segregated collection at source (including informal waste collectors).
If only the recycler issues certificates priced at $300/tonne on behalf of the whole chain, the recycler can keep $100/t for itself, and pay out $200 downstream by
(i) adding $0.20 / kg to the purchase price of feedstock, and the intermediary must increase the buying price by $0.10 / kg, thus sharing the proceeds downstream. Or
(ii) keeping the buying price the same, but using the Kolekt App to transfer the payments downstream. Contact us to organise this.
If each supply chain actor issues certificates for themselves, then the Certificate price should be 33% of the total recovery price gap per tonne for the whole supply chain. Contact us to get the price right before issueing certificates.
(5) The Kolekt Fee is 5% of certificate price. When the Buyer’s payment is made, Kolekt will keep 5% of the proceeds and transfer 95% to the issuer of the certificate.
Notes for the Buyer
This field allows you to add some text and context to your waste collection & recovery service.
Why should a Brand in your country buy your certificate?
How does your company add value?
Why is the Certificate important to your operation?
Notes for Kolekt Admin
When you press the [CREATE] button your Certificate will be submitted for verification by the Kolekt team. If there are any comments or suggestions to explain your numbers or upload to speed up the verification process, you can do so here.
No Double Counting
The tonnes (input and output) that have been declared in this certificate cannot receive funds from a buyer and also from a plastic credit sale or receipt of EPR subsidies.
Double counting is
1) The transfer of this proof of waste recovery or recycling of these same tonnes to more than one party. Such as to the EPR regulator within the national market and to a Brand outside the country who wants the proof to meet their voluntary targets.
2) Receiving more than once source of additional funds from Credit sales or EPR subsidies or receiving ‘performance based’ grant funds.
If the material of your Certificate is Plastic then we recommend you check the plastic credit registries such as PCX Markets Registry, Verra PWRS Registry , Ocean Bound Plastic (OBP) Registry and the Circular Credit Mechanism (CCM) registry.
Submitting the certificate for verification & issuance
Once the certificate form is filled in press the [CREATE] button.
This will submit the certificate to the Kolekt administrator for verification. You will then receive one of 3 emails:
Improve: If something needs improving, you will receive an email with suggestions from the administrator. The Kolekt Administrator cannot edit your Certificate, he/she can only request chanes. Once you have updated the certificate, then resubmit it for verification.
Rejected: If your certificate does not qualify, not even with improvements, it will be rejected and you will be given a reason for the rejection. You will be notified by email.
Approved: If OK, the administrator will approve your certificate and it will be issued (making it visible) on the Buyers Exchange https://exchange.kolekt.com
What does a certificate look like?
Has been purchased by a consumer goods company, for 1 tonne. For the service of Collection by the operator Kolekt Recycler NL.
By clicking the link or the QR code at the bottom left, the viewer can inspect the underlying documents of proof.
KOLEKT has verified all underlying documents, the operator and the audit report.
A PDF file of a Purchased Certificate
Which can be valided via the QR code or link
The same Certificate, online
containing all documents of proof
