To be phased in after the adoption of the WEEE Directive within the next 18 months, all costs from the collection points to the treatment, re-use and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment will be covered by producers for their own products.
This is likely to have a huge impact on “producers”, which includes retailers, resellers, manufacturers and some importers.
Adopting the collective responsibility approach would have meant some producers could have ended up shouldering some of the costs for their competitors, rather than just meeting with their individual financial responsibility for re-use and recycling of their own products.
Electrolux is just one of the major producers to be covered under the title of producers within the Directive, and will also be one of the most largest covered as it makes brands such as AEG, Zanussi, Frigidaire, Eureka, Flymo and Husqvarna.
Environmental performance
Electrolux had argued that a collective approach would do “nothing to improve environmental performance”. It reasoned that individual responsibility would “give rise to market-driven solutions, providing driving forces for eco-designed products and improved recycling efficiency.”
Electrolux said “the Directive will now create an incentive for each manufacturer to develop products that minimise environmental impact, in which a higher proportion of components can be recycled, more easily and at lower cost.
They can then pass cost-benefits on to consumers, who thereby have an incentive to buy these more eco-friendly products. This in turn diminishes the long-term impact of electrical goods on the environment.”
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