ERP for Recycling and Waste — software for Entsorgung under KrWG and eANV

The German recycling and waste-management industry (recycling and waste management) operates under one of the densest regulatory regimes in the manufacturing-adjacent sector: the Kreislaufwirtschaftsgesetz (KrWG, German Recycling Act) and the older AbfG framework, the electronic waste-transport documentation system (eANV), and a long list of fraction-specific rules. An ERP for recycling and waste has to integrate weighbridge systems, container tracking with RFID, route optimisation, the eANV signature workflow, and a secondary-material trading layer that mixes commodity-trading and disposal-services economics.

Requirements for recycling and waste ERP

Waste-management business processes look unlike most other distribution or manufacturing models. Each transaction has both a service component (collection, transport, treatment) and a material-flow component (which can be revenue or cost depending on the fraction and the market). Weighbridge data — gross weight, tare weight, fraction code, supplier — is the primary transactional event for most loads, and the ERP needs a clean integration with the weighing-system manufacturer (Schenck, Mettler, Pfreundt). Container tracking with RFID or barcode handles the asset pool of skips, roll-on/roll-off containers and IBCs at customer sites. Route optimisation matters for the collection side, where vehicle utilisation defines margin. eANV adds an electronic-signature workflow for hazardous waste with the Länder authorities.

Mandatory functions

Mandatory functions include: weighbridge integration with automatic ticket generation and fraction classification per AVV (Abfallverzeichnis-Verordnung) waste codes; eANV workflow for hazardous-waste consignment notes (Entsorgungsnachweise and Begleitscheine) including the qualified electronic signature; container management with RFID/barcode and customer-site assignment; route optimisation and dispatch for collection tours; secondary-material trading module with commodity-style pricing (steel scrap indices, paper grades, plastic recyclate); customer-billing logic that can handle both service revenue and material-credit invoices to the same customer; and KrWG-compliant material-flow reporting for the Länder authorities. Audit-trail support is mandatory because hazardous-waste records are inspected.

Typical Mid-Market profiles and real-world use cases

The German recycling and waste sector has a recognisable typology of mid-market firms, each with a different ERP centre of gravity. Three profiles cover the bulk of selection projects today.

Profile 1 — the regional municipal-services operator. A regional Entsorgungsfachbetrieb in North Rhine-Westphalia with 220 employees, EUR 55 million in turnover, running residual-waste, organic-waste and recyclables collection for several Landkreise plus commercial customers. The defining pain point is route economics: 35–45 collection vehicles run fixed weekly tours and any idle minute destroys margin. The ERP must hand a complete dispatch package — route, container list, RFID identifiers, customer-site notes — to the driver's tablet, capture pick-ups in real time and reconcile the weighbridge ticket at the gate. A second pain point is the dual-revenue mix: municipal contracts are price-regulated and stable, while commercial collection runs on market terms, and the same vehicle often serves both on a single shift — the ERP has to keep the cost attribution clean.

Profile 2 — the hazardous-waste specialist. A 95-employee specialist for hazardous and special waste in Hesse, EUR 28 million turnover, handling solvent-contaminated liquids, batteries, electronics and pharmaceutical residues from industrial customers. Pain point one is eANV throughput: 600–1,000 Begleitscheine per month, each requiring qualified electronic signatures, customer acknowledgement and Länder reporting. A specialist ERP automates the consignment-note workflow end to end, including the receipt-confirmation step from the receiving treatment plant. Pain point two is treatment-plant interfaces: every fraction routes to a specific certified treatment plant under its own EfbV (Entsorgungsfachbetriebeverordnung) certification, and the ERP must validate the routing against current certifications before the truck leaves the yard.

Profile 3 — the secondary-materials trader. A 60-employee scrap-metal trader in Baden-Württemberg, EUR 110 million turnover (mostly material pass-through), buying ferrous and non-ferrous scrap from industrial generators and selling into steel mills and smelters. The pain point is price volatility: scrap prices move on the LME and on regional indices daily, and the trading desk has to mark inventory to market, hedge long positions and price customer credit notes against index references. Generic distribution ERPs typically cannot model the material-credit-note flow back to the supplier — the same physical movement is purchase, sale and inventory event with margin earned on the spread.

Vendor landscape

Specialist vendors with strong DACH waste-management coverage include AbfallWin, EcoWebDesk, FAKTUR-X.entsorgung, D-Software AbfallEDV, Aviga, Ennit and GUS-OS Recycling. Most are sized for the mid-market (50–500 employees), which covers the bulk of regional and specialist Entsorgungsbetriebe. Larger waste-management groups (Veolia, Remondis, Suez, Alba) run either bespoke or heavily customised SAP S/4HANA stacks with waste-industry add-ons. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with a waste add-on is occasionally seen at the smaller end of the market but lacks the depth of the specialists on eANV and weighbridge integration. SAP Business One appears at smaller operators that began on the SAP stack for finance and bolt a third-party waste extension on top.

Selection criteria for recycling and waste operators

• eANV interface as a native module with qualified electronic signature (QES) and ZKS-Abfall integration — not a custom add-on
• Weighbridge integration with certified protocols (Schenck, Mettler, Pfreundt, Bizerba) and automatic AVV-code classification
• Container management with RFID/barcode, standing-time analysis and emptying-interval planning
• Material-flow analytics across AVV codes, EfbV certifications and Länder-authority reporting
• Route optimisation and mobile driver app with real-time pick-up confirmation
• Dual customer-ledger logic for service revenue and material-credit invoices
• Index-pricing engine for secondary-material trading (paper grades, scrap indices, recyclate)
• Integration with telematics for vehicle utilisation and fuel reporting
• EDI connectivity to ZEDAL and Länder portals for structured authority reporting
• VerpackG and LUCID master-data flows for packaging-act reporting

Trends and outlook

Three trends are tightening recycling-ERP requirements. First, EU Green Deal and German packaging-act (VerpackG) reporting force structured material-flow data into formal submissions, raising the bar on master-data discipline. Second, secondary-material price volatility (steel scrap, recyclate plastics, paper) makes margin transparency at the trading desk more valuable, which favours ERPs that can hold real-time index prices and run mark-to-market on inventory. Third, EU eIDAS-conformant qualified electronic signatures are tightening eANV workflows further, and vendors are differentiating on how clean their signature integration is for routine drivers and shift dispatchers. A fourth trend, increasingly visible from 2025 onwards, is the upcoming Digital Product Passport for batteries and electronics — recyclers will be expected to ingest and update product-passport data at end-of-life, which becomes another ERP data flow.

Related Topics

• ERP for manufacturing
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
• SAP Business One
• Audit trail
• EDI
• ERP consultants