The text, which has just been issued by the European Commission, follows on from a draft published in June 2000 and is part of a set of legislative measures that will strongly influence how electrical goods, such as CD players and computers, are designed and recycled or disposed of in the future.
In its draft text the Commission has chosen not to be over prescriptive and states that it is leaving much of the detaile dwork that needs to be done to manufacturers and technical groups.
The draft does say that in choosing designs and technology for equipment ranging the manufacturer shall apply various principles.
These include:
-
Make efficient use of energy and materials throughout the lifecycle of the
product. - Encourage the use of recycled material and the reuse of components, subsystems and systems.
- Minimise the release of hazardous substances into the environment, complying with the relevant Community legislation relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations.
Optimise the useful lifetime of the product by designing for durability, reliability, modularity, upgradability, reparability, reusability.
An important requirement suggested within the draft text is for desginers to think of ways to help with end of life management, in recycling, recovery and disassembly. The draft says that “in
particular, make use of common component and material coding standards to
facilitate the identification of those components and materials which are suitable
for re-use and recycling.”
The full text of the draft proposal can be seen at EEE .
Comments on the paper are being invited until the autum of 2001 and can be sent by email
or by post to: Mrs Sandra Callagan,Enterprise DG
Unit G3 – Electrical and Mechanical Equipment
200, rue de la Loi, Wetstraat 200
B-1049 Brussels.
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