Strasbourg, 10/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - Adopting reports in second reading on Wednesday by Karl Florenz (CDU) on electrical and electronic waste, the EP greatly strengthened the Council's common position on the two important directives that are part of the Community's waste prevention and management strategy, aiming to cut the mountains of waste electronic and electric machinery (estimated at totalling 6 million tonnes in 1998) in the EU. This waste is currently growing at a rate of 3 to 5% a year.
The first directive aims to encourage the collection and recycling of electronic and electric waste and obliges Member States to set up collection and selective processing programmes for waste machines from households and force manufacturers to fund the collection, recycling and processing of waste, meeting recycling and re-use targets. The second directive aims to restrict the use of dangerous substances in such equipment.
The amendments voted on focussed on repeating demands tabled in first reading but ignored by the Council which in Mr Florenz's words received massive support from an unusual alliance of European consumer organisations, environment NGOs, industrial federations, trade representatives and the European Commission. They demand a total ban in 2005 on throwing such material away; and an obligation to take such junk to special centres; that Member States be forced to provide proof to the European Commission by 31 December 2005 that they have ensured that mechanisms to ensure that at least 6 kg of waste per inhabitant (rather than 4kg as proposed by the Council as a non-binding objective) can be collected every year are in place; placing greater financial liability on individual manufacturers along with the option for SMEs to use a collective funding scheme; and for manufacturers to be obliged to provide proof they are funding schemes for the scrapping of their products before they place them on the market (to prevent unscrupulous manufacturers form leaving others to pick up the tab for processing polluting waste they leave behind); a ban from 1 January 2006 onwards on selling electric and electronic equipment containing lead, mercury, cadmium, types of chrome, polybromodiphenyl and polybromodiphenylether; and a review as soon as possible of the directive covering batteries and accumulators containing dangerous substances to approximate it with this legislation.
Mr Florenz said the directive covered recycling rates of up to 75% by weight of end-of-life equipment, but what's the point of such rates if only a minute share of the 6 million tonnes of waste produced a year is reused? Massive collection of waste is a sine qua non to prevent waste containing dangerous substances like lead, cadmium and mercury from building up.
French Green Alex de Roo, Vice-President of the Environment Committee, said that after the directive forcing car manufacturers to bear the cost of cleaning up car wrecks, this vote is a decisive new step in the introduction of the polluter pays principle into EU legislation. We are satisfied, he said, that the EP has called for individual companies to be liable for their products rather than following the Council's idea of collective liability. Individual liability encourages companies to set up collective recycling schemes to cut the cost of processing waste which will greatly simply things for consumers. We totally oppose the idea put forward by various EU governments of leaving it up to each country to decide whether to choose individual or collective liability. This success is due to an unusual alliance between Greens and progressive manufacturers in Northern Europe, recognising the advantages of green product design for the industry. We hope, he said, that the Council will accept the improvements put forward by the Parliament so the directive can come into force before 2006.
Industry is also happy with the new legislation. In a press release, Electrolux "welcomes the European Parliament's good work on producer responsibility. We are now calling on the Council to support this position at its second reading". Electrolux says that the EP's request that "all producers (and importers) … provide guarantees for future recycling when placing products on the market" eliminates a situation whereby "the proposal of the Council would give a dangerous loophole creating incentives for short sighted actors to avoid resolving their recycling responsibilities in order to get a competitive advantage", rather than making existing producers cover costs of "recycling products from producers that disappear or cannot be identified, so called "free riders"".
Environment NGOs are also pleased that the Parliament called for individual liability. The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) said this was the best way of encouraging better product design for electrical and electronic goods and reflecting the environmental costs of such products in the cost price. The EEB is concerned; however, that the "appropriate guarantees" scheme will not operate as it should and will undermine the idea of manufacturers being individually liable.