Collectively, EU Member States collect and recover more discarded electrical and electronic equipment than most countries, but the EU is at risk of failing to meet its most ambitious electronic waste collection targets, warns the European Court of Auditors in an analysis paper (No. 04/2021) published on Thursday 20 May.
This paper examines the action taken by the EU and the challenges it has faced since the adoption of its Directive on Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), which was adopted in 2002 and revised in 2012 (2012/19/EU). It is intended to feed into the European Commission’s reflection on the development of the circular economy initiative for electronic equipment, which is scheduled for the last quarter of 2021.
The two main underlined challenges are the implementation of existing legislation and the fight against crime.
“Europe currently recycles about 80% of the electronic waste it collects. However, the collection, recycling and reuse of electronic waste is not progressing at the same pace in all Member States, and the rate could be accelerated. We have also found that the EU’s fight against unscrupulous waste management, illegal shipments and other criminal activities is a difficult one”, summarises Joëlle Elvinger, the member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the analysis paper.
The Court notes that Member States often struggle to enforce the Directive. Only two Member States appear to be well placed to meet the collection targets that were set in 2019. Inter alia, the Court highlights the sometimes unscrupulous management of electronic waste and its treatment (such as the extraction and clean up of potentially toxic components or substances), which is often linked to the absence or scarcity of monitoring and inspections.
Some Member States do not have the necessary resources with which to rigorously monitor operators and shipments of waste to third countries. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)