Tag: electronic waste

The European Parliament and the 27 EU member states are set for difficult negotiations over the recast of the bloc’s electronic waste directive as MEPs insist on ambitious targets for collecting and recycling discarded fridges, phones and other e-waste than the member states can accept.

As the EU institutions discuss updating the bloc's 2003 electronic waste directive, researchers argue that the hasty recast ignores important topics, such as scarcity of some key raw materials, which have since climbed up the EU agenda.

As the EU prepares to review its electronic waste legislation, industry is calling for a reality check of a European Commission proposal setting binding waste collection targets for manufacturers and making them pay for collecting consumers' scrap.

Electronic equipment manufacturers fear that a proposed review of an EU directive on recycling waste electrical and electronic equipment will result in producers having to pay for household collection.

The EU's WEEE Directive to collect and recycle electronic waste has created a heavy administrative burden for companies that is exacerbated by the multitude of national systems, says Kirstie McIntyre from HP.

Consumer electronic manufacturers including Sony, Nokia and HP, and NGOs ranging from Greenpeace to Friends of the Earth, have called on the Commission to take action against 11 member states that have transposed the WEEE directive without making producers fully responsible for the recycling of electrical and electronic products.

The Environment Council has emphasised the importance of keeping a clear waste hierarchy that puts the priority on prevention, thereby soothing green NGO fears that it wanted to prioritise incineration for generating energy.

The directive on Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) aims to increase the re-use, recycling and recovery of waste from a variety of consumer products ranging from light bulbs to PCs, mobile phones, medical devices and sports equipment. The WEEE directive is complemented by a directive on the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) in electrical and electronic equipment. The two directives came into force in 2003 but have come under fire for being too complicated, too costly and even for being impossible to implement.