In a vote this afternoon, the European Parliament passed a set of amendments to the WEEE directive which were proposed by the European Parliament's Environment Committee. There are now a number of major differences between the Parliament's and the Council's proposals. So, negotiations between the two sides will now take place which could mean that the directive is not finalised until the autumn.
Parliament passed amendments which repeat its demand for an average collection target of 6kg of electro-scrap per inhabitant, per year, to be achieved by December 31 2005. Although MEPs voted for consumers to sort electro-scrap they rejected plans to impose penalties on consumers. And to prove that Member States have reached targets they agreed with a proposal for inspection and monitoring facilities.
MEPs raised the targets for recovery of large household appliances such as fridges and washing machines to 90% (from the Council's 80%). But they left the Council's re-use and recycling target for large household appliances at 75%. They raised the recovery target for PCs, phones, radios and hi-fi equipment to 85% (from the Council's 75%) and left the Council's re-use and recycling target for those items at 65%. They also want the deadline for these targets brought forward to December 31 2005.
Parliament has also repeated its demand that producers should pay for recycling their waste products. Although this would see companies individually responsible, Member States would be allowed to use collective financing schemes if they can prove that individual ones would be disproportionately costly.
Up-front guarantee
Another amendment which Parliament agreed to was to make producers provide up-front guarantees for the financing of the future disposal of their products. This is to discourage irresponsible producers, or “free-riders”, from putting environmentally harmful products on the market and then disappeaing, leaving other producers to pick up their “waste bill”. Parliament's amendment specifies that the guarantee can take the form of a recycling insurance, a blocked bank account or a contribution to a joint scheme for financing the management of the waste.
With “historical waste”, Parliament agrees with the Council that the costs of waste from products put on the market before the legislation comes into force, including products whose producers are untraceable, should be shared amongst producers. However, whilst the council wants producers to “contribute proportionally” to these costs, Parliament specifies that the costs must be shared between producers according to market share, by type of equipment. It also agreed to allow a transition period of ten years, where producers can, display the costs of disposing of historical waste at the point of sale of new products – the visible fee.
MEPs also voted to prevent the practice, begun after Parliament's first reading on the directive, of installing “clever chip” devices designed to get round the forthcoming legislation and prevent recycling, for example by preventing ink jet cartridges from being re-used in printers.
And they deleted the Council's proposal that small firms should be excluded from the new directive on the grounds that it would not help small businesses, could lead to job losses and distort competition.
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