During the International Electronics Recycling Congress held this month in Basel, Switzerland, the European Electronics Recyclers Association (EERA) expressed concerns over the consequences that significant delays in transposing the WEEE Directive into Member States' legislation could cause.
” Recyclers are very cautious to invest in capital intensive treatment facilities at a time that exact collection and treatment requirements are still unclear “
– The EERA
Although the latest date for the transposition of the Directive was August 13 2004 the majority of the countries have not yet published the final legislation at this time.
If there are further delays there could be severe consequences when producer responsibility is due to start on August 13, 2005, the recyclers fear.
The EERA said: “Recyclers are very cautious to invest in capital intensive treatment facilities at a time that exact collection and treatment requirements are still unclear. At present there are different interpretations of the rules and regulations between member states and there is insufficient coordination to harmonize the subjects at EU level.”
Consequences
The EERA said it expects that these developments will have undesired consequences resulting in adverse effects on protection of human health and the environment. It said: “Furthermore we expect that unclear and diversified legislation will lead to unfair competition and uncontrolled export of WEEE.
“Consequently this will lead to an unnecessary negative image of the recycling industry caused by issues for which it is not responsible,” the organisation added.
Members of the EERA have requested that Member States finalise the transposition of the WEEE Directive in order that collection and treatment of WEEE can start with minimum delay.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Trade and Industry said that the government was currently on course to meet the 2005 producer responsibility deadline set out by the EU.
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