News

Tighter laws announced on recycling and use of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (12/12/2008)

The European Commission recently announced its proposals for the revision of the WEEE and RoHS Directives. The main aims of the proposals are improving the implementation and enforcement of laws on electrical and electronic equipment and cutting unnecessary administrative burden.

Only approximately a third of waste electrical and electronic equipment (33%) is reported to be treated according to the existing legislation. Approximately 13% of the remaining waste equipment is sent to landfill sites with most being sent for potentially sub-standard treatment inside or outside the EU (54%). Illegal trade of waste electrical and electronic equipment to non-EU countries is still widespread.

This results in lost opportunities to extract materials from waste equipment which could potentially replace extracted raw materials thus protecting the World’s resources. Improper treatment of WEEE increases environmental damage and health risks in the European Union and non EU countries.

The European Commission has summarised the main changes to the WEEE Directive as:

• better coordination of  the registration process and reporting obligations for producers of goods across the EU, in order to reduce the amount of paperwork currently involved.  This is expected to lead to potential savings of €60 million
• clarification of the scope and definitions of WEEE
• a change in the collection target from the current 4kg/capita per year ("one size fits all") to a variable target that takes into account the economies of individual Member States 
• a combined recycling and re-use target which is socially and environmentally viable to encourage reuse
• improved environmental benefits and material savings by including recovery and recycling/re-use targets for medical devices
• set minimum inspection requirements for Member States to strengthen the enforcement of the directive and include minimum monitoring requirements for shipping WEEE
• Member States, where appropriate, will have to encourage producers to finance all the costs of separate collection
• producers will be allowed to show the cost of collection, treatment and environmentally-sound disposal of products to consumers at the point of sale.  This is in line with the principles of sustainable consumption and production and ensures that consumers can make informed purchasing choices

Budget Pack will be providing more detail about the proposed changes to the WEEE and RoHS Directives in the members’ section of our website. If you are not already a member of the Budget Pack Compliance Scheme, join our FREE Info Scheme NOW to gain access to more information on these proposed changes to the WEEE and RoHS Directives and other useful information, or call us on 0845 094 2228.

Some of the information in this article has been sourced from the European Commission webpages on electrical and electronic equipment (www.europa.eu)