New WEEE targets from 2016
European legislation on recovering electrical waste will mean more demanding recovery rates from 2016.
A revised WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) Directive was published in the EU Journal in July following agreement between the European Council and the European Parliament; it will come into operation on 15 February 2014. The related Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive, which restricts the use of certain hazardous materials, will also be amended.
Under the recast Directive, the collection targets for electrical waste have been increased. From 2016, 45 per cent of electrical and electronic goods placed on the market (by weight, averaged over the previous three years) must be collected. This increases to 65 per cent (or 85 per cent of WEEE generated) of material in 2019. The targets apply to all business-to-business and business-to-consumer purchases.
Member states have the option of using visible fees (showing the cost of collection, treatment and disposal at the time of purchase) and the scope of waste covered will be widened to cover, in principle, all equipment such as photovoltaic panels, equipment containing ozone-depleting substances and fluorescent lamps containing mercury. These materials will have to be collected separately and properly treated six years after the legislation takes effect.
Reform, which was initiated in 2008, follows the failure by the original Directive to fully achieve its objectives. Only one-third of WEEE is reported as collected and appropriately treated. The remainder is going to landfill and sub-standard treatment sites. The rise in metal theft is seen by the recycling industry as a growing barrier to accessing material, while illegal trade of waste to (and dumping in) non-EU countries remains a problem.
The current WEEE Directive, which was to have been transposed by August 2004, was transposed in Ireland in August 2005. The Directive sets a target of 4kg per person to be achieved by member states. Ireland’s collection rate for 2010, according to the EPA, stood at 8.2kg per person. The 45,012 tonnes of WEEE represented a slight decrease from the 45,327 tonnes collected in 2009.
Large domestic appliances accounted for the largest share of WEEE (41.5 per cent), followed by ‘other’ WEEE such as toys and stereos (33.5 per cent) and TVs and monitors (17.2 per cent). In 2010, 51.9 per cent of collected WEEE was treated in Ireland, 46.7 per cent was exported to the EU for treatment. The remaining WEEE was accounted for through differences between amounts collected and treated (1.3 per cent) and exported to non-EU countries (0.1 per cent).
Presently, responsibility for disposal rests with manufacturers or distributors (deemed producers if manufacturers are outside the country where goods are sold), who normally fulfil obligations through producer compliance schemes. Companies must also take back WEEE from private householders free of charge provided that it is of the equivalent type as that which was sold.
Under the new Directive, producer responsibility is seen as a means of encouraging design and production of electrical goods in a way that fully takes into account and facilitates repair, upgrading, re-use, disassembly and recycling. Customers will be able to return very small waste items (no more than 25cm long) free of charge to retail shops with electrical and electronic sales-related areas of at least 400m², or in their immediate proximity. The Directive also aims to encourage more re-use by setting out minimum requirements outlined for the shipment of used goods.
A 2008 review of the current Directive conducted for the Commission found large differences in performance between different member states per sub-category (e.g. large household appliances). It also found a need for consistency in legislative requirements across the EU and in registering and reporting activities. Authors claimed that “large numbers” of SMEs are “not even aware of their current legal obligations.”
