WEEE & BATTERIES
Are WEEE missing an opportunity?
Recent moves to recast the WEEE Directive are to be welcomed, but do they go far enough? Haley Bowcock outlines six areas that need addressing
he European Parliament recently met to vote on a recast of the WEEE legislation. The proposals approved by MEPs at the meeting were refreshingly ambitious. These included: that member states should collect 85% of the e-waste they produce from 2016; an open product scope for the directive, with all EEE to be included, unless specifically exempted; a recommendation for higher recovery targets, with a 50-75% recycling target (depending on product category) and support for a new 5% reuse goal. Given the toxic and valuable materials contained within electronics, the issue of e-waste is a serious one. Some 20B items of EEE are in use globally. Rapid product replacement cycles means that we can expect all of this equipment to be e-waste in five years, creating a toxic time-bomb of epic proportions. Much of the current e-waste pile is managed badly. Over 50M tonnes of e-waste was generated worldwide in 2009, but only 13% was recycled. Also, there is a worrying flow of e-waste from wealthier countries that have systems to deal with it safely, to poorer countries that do not. The WEEE Directive was created to address this problem. However, according to the European Commission, only one- third of WEEE collected in the EU is treated according to the directive’s requirements. The rest goes to landfill or to sub-
T 14 Local Authority Waste & Recycling April 2011
standard treatment inside or outside the EU. This includes illegal export to developing countries where informal recy- clers process the waste, risking their health and polluting the environment.
Clearly, changes need to be made – some of which have been reflected in the current proposals for a recast of the directive. At Computer Aid International, we have been lobbying the UK government for years to improve e-waste legislation. There are six areas we believe need changing within the directive to enable it to properly fulfil its role of protecting human health and the environment from the impacts of e-waste.
Streamline the approach
First, more streamlined administration and clarification of the directive’s scope to include all WEEE. A common report- ing format would be especially desirable, to minimise con- fusion and add to administrative efficiency. The EU must clarify the directive’s scope, to remove any uncertainty that could lead to WEEE unnecessarily going to unsorted landfill. These and similar measures will help remove any differenc- es in interpretation by member states that lead to unneces- sary costs, delays and decreased environmental performance. Second, reduced waste generation in the first place through
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