EN 17988-4:2024

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-februar-2025
Krožna zasnova ribolovnega orodja in opreme za akvakulturo - 4. del: Okoljske in
krožne zahteve ter smernice
Circular design of fishing gear and aquaculture equipment - Part 4: Environmental and
circularity requirements and guidelines
Kreislaufwirtschaft von Fischfanggeräten und Aquakulturausrüstungen - Teil 4: Umwelt-
und Kreislaufanforderungen und Leitlinien
Circularité et recyclabilité des engins de pêche et des équipements d’aquaculture -
Partie 4 : Exigences et lignes directrices en matière d’environnement et de circularité
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: EN 17988-4:2024
ICS:
13.020.20 Okoljska ekonomija. Environmental economics.
Trajnostnost Sustainability
65.150 Ribolov in ribogojstvo Fishing and fish breeding
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

EN 17988-4
EUROPEAN STANDARD
NORME EUROPÉENNE
November 2024
EUROPÄISCHE NORM
ICS 13.020.20; 65.150
English Version
Circular design of fishing gear and aquaculture equipment
- Part 4: Environmental and circularity requirements and
guidelines
Circularité et recyclabilité des engins de pêche et des Kreislaufdesign von Fischfanggeräten und
équipements d'aquaculture - Partie 4 : Exigences et Aquakulturausrüstungen - Teil 4: Umwelt- und
lignes directrices en matière d'environnement et de Kreislaufanforderungen und Leitfaden
circularité
This European Standard was approved by CEN on 30 September 2024.

CEN members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this
European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration. Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references
concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CEN
member.
This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by
translation under the responsibility of a CEN member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management
Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and
United Kingdom.
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION

EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG

CEN-CENELEC Management Centre: Rue de la Science 23, B-1040 Brussels
© 2024 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. EN 17988-4:2024 E
worldwide for CEN national Members.

Contents Page
European foreword . 3
Introduction . 4
1 Scope . 6
2 Normative references . 6
3 Terms and definitions. 7
4 Principles . 7
4.1 General . 7
Figure 1 — Stages in product life, linear paradigm . 7
Figure 2 — Stages in product life, circular paradigm . 8
4.2 Modular design using standardized components . 9
4.3 User requirements and circularity needs. 9
5 Design criteria throughout the different steps in the life cycle . 10
5.1 Selection/sourcing of materials, components, parts or products . 10
5.2 Design for manufacture/assembly. 17
5.3 Design of placement, installation and deployment of the fishing gear or aquaculture
equipment . 19
5.4 Design for use and maintenance . 19
5.5 Design for end-of-use stage. 20
Bibliography . 21

European foreword
This document (EN 17988-4:2024) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 466
“Circularity and recyclability of fishing gear and aquaculture equipment”, the secretariat of which is
held by NEN.
This European Standard shall be given the status of a national standard, either by publication of an
identical text or by endorsement, at the latest by May 2025, and conflicting national standards shall
be withdrawn at the latest by May 2025.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject
of patent rights. CEN shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
This document has been prepared under a standardization request addressed to CEN by the
European Commission (M/574). The Standing Committee of the EFTA States subsequently approves
these requests for its Member States.
This document is part of the EN 17988 series.
The EN 17988 series consists of the following parts, under the general title Circular design of fishing
gear and aquaculture equipment:
— Part 1: General requirements and guidelines
— Part 2: User manuals and labelling
— Part 3: Technical requirements and guidelines
— Part 4: Environmental and circularity requirements and guidelines
— Part 5: Circular business models
— Part 6: Requirements and guidelines for digitalization of information of components of fishing
gear and aquaculture equipment
Any feedback and questions on this document should be directed to the users’ national standards
body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found on the CEN website.
According to the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organisations of the
following countries are bound to implement this European Standard: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Türkiye and the United Kingdom.

Introduction
As part of the European Green Deal, launched in 2019, the European Commission introduced
measures to move to a climate neutral and circular economy, together with a digital transition. One
of the targets in the transition to a circular economy was to reduce the amount of waste released into
the environment by decreasing the amount of waste generated, increasing the amount of waste
collected and re-introducing the materials regenerated from waste into the production of new
products.
Specifically, the accumulation of plastics in marine and other aquatic environments were addressed
in two directives:
— The revised Port Reception Facilities (PRF) Directive [1] encourages fishers and aquaculturists
to bring not only their own end-of-use gear but also bring ashore abandoned, lost or otherwise
discarded (ALD) fishing gear and aquaculture equipment, thus encouraging waste to be carried
back to port.
— The Single Use Plastics (SUP) Directive [2], which lays down rules concerning different plastic
products, including fishing gear and aquaculture equipment containing plastics, and sets
requirements to the Member States to establish Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
schemes. Concerning fishing gear, it also contains rules on minimum national annual collection
rates, together with reporting on fishing gear placed on the market and waste fishing gear
collected in ports.
In 2021, the standardization request M/574 on the circular design of fishing gear [3] was passed by
the European Commission and the parliament and accepted by CEN, which forms the basis for this
series of documents (EN 17988 series). While the term ‘fishing gear’ is used predominantly in the
SUP Directive and M/574, both documents encompass aquaculture equipment.
The purpose of this series of documents is to provide stakeholders with requirements,
recommendations and guidelines to address the different aspects of circular design of fishing gear
and aquaculture equipment containing plastics, encourage preparing for reuse and facilitate
recyclability at end-of-use. These requirements are intended to be applied from the design phase
across the entire life cycle of the fishing gear and aquaculture equipment. This includes but is not
limited to: manufacturing, use, maintenance, repair, collection, sorting, preparation for recycling,
reuse, remanufacture, disposal, uptake of recycled content and recycling.
Although this document is written for fishing gear and aquaculture equipment containing plastics,
the requirements, recommendations and guidelines are also applicable to other materials.
This series of documents does not address other important design criteria such as fishing or farming
efficiency. When implementing the requirements, recommendations and guidelines provided in
these documents, balanced trade-offs between all relevant criteria need to be taken into account.
This series of documents aims to contribute to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) [4]:
— 9 Industry, innovation, and infrastructure,
— 12 Responsible consumption and production,
— 14 Life below water, in particular target 14.1 By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine
pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and
nutrient pollution.
For a full outline of the parts of the standard, and how the parts relate to each other, see part 1.
Part 4 addresses the environmental and circularity requirements and guidelines together, as these
two are interrelated and interdependent.
A circular economy focusses on environmental performance improvements with the help of resource
cycles. The circular economy is a sustainable ecosystem which focusses on preventing and reducing
waste, keeping the value retention of fishing gear and aquaculture equipment at its highest level,
while preventing and reducing its environmental impacts throughout its life cycle. It contributes to a
more sustainable world, but not all sustainability initiatives contribute to circularity.
The circular economy establishes sustainable principles for fishing gear and aquaculture equipment
and sets a basis for a common approach to the eco-modulation of EPR fees.
The aim of the document is to enable the reader to more efficiently use materials and resources and
reduce the amount of plastics lost as waste while delivering the best environmental outcome.
Note to the reader on normative language: In this document, the following verbal forms are used in
accordance with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations Part 3, Clause 7:
— “shall” indicates a requirement;
— “should” indicates a recommendation;
— “may” indicates a permission;
— “can” indicates a possibility or a capability;
— “must” indicates an external constraint.
1 Scope
This document specifies the environmental and circularity requirements for the components of
fishing gear and aquaculture equipment which contain plastics. It establishes sustainability
principles that minimize the negative impact of the plastic components of fishing gear and
aquaculture equipment on the environment, taking into account the impact on its performance
(e.g. catchability or lifespan). The circular and environmental design of fishing gear and aquaculture
equipment focuses on:
— the selection and sourcing of materials and components;
— manufacture and assembly;
— placement, installation, and deployment of the fishing gear and aquaculture equipment;
— use and maintenance repair; and
— the end-of-use stage.
Transport, storage and distribution are taken into account at the different stages, where applicable.
This document excludes design aspects related to fishing or aquaculture techniques or management.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments)
applies.
EN 17988-1, Circular design of fishing gear and aquaculture equipment — General requirements and
guidelines
EN 17988-2, Circular design of fishing gear and aquaculture equipment — User manuals and labelling
EN 17988-3, Circular design of fishing gear and aquaculture equipment — Technical requirements and
guidelines
EN IEC 62430, E
...