Electronics recyclers demand level playing field across EU

The European Electronics Recyclers' Association has written to the European Commission warning that the Directive allows different EU Member States to bring in different treatment standards for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

” The recycling business is a European business where economic principles like economies of scale do apply. The EERA would like to see interpretations harmonised.“
– EERA statement
The Association also warned that the Directive's “prescriptive” terms impose inflexible rules on how treatment of WEEE is to be carried out, which it suggested “could lead to the prohibition of other or new treatment processes that may have equally good or better results.”

The EERA, whose members recycle 400,000 tonnes of material each year and include UK-based Sims Group, have published a position paper that has been sent to the Commission. The paper warns that the WEEE Directive is too open to interpretation and “will inevitably lead to a distorted European market”.

It said: “The recycling business is a European business where economic principles like economies of scale do apply. The EERA would like to see interpretations harmonised in order that a fair, level playing field is created.”

Differences
The differences in interpretation by European countries highlighted by the EERA centre around Annex II, which details the standards that producers will be expected to meet in terms of the systems they provide for the treatment of WEEE.

The Annex lists components and substances that must be removed from separately collected WEEE and for some of these – including cathode ray tubes, gas discharge lamps and equipment containing gases that deplete the Ozone Layer – it specifies minimum treatment conditions.

The EERA said the Directive does not make clear how new treatment technologies can be included within Annex II, and warned that in some European countries the list of materials that have to be removed is being interpreted as a list of what must be removed manually before mechanical or chemical processes can be used.

The EERA wants the Annex clarified to state that the materials may be removed manually, mechanically or chemically. It also called for an amendment to the Annex to allow internal batteries to be removed either manually or after coarse shredding of the equipment containing the batteries.

The Association wants a single, pan-European emission limit for ozone-depleting gases such as CFCs.

The Association has written to Timo Makela, director of the Commission's sustainable development directorate, calling for a working group to be set up to improve Annex II of the Directive.