WEEE ‘recast’ moves closer
The WEEE Directive has been under review for a number of years as the EU Commission has sought to negotiate a ‘recast’ position that was acceptable to MEPs. It seems that finally, a compromise agreement has finally been reached that will see major changes to the way the UK WEEE Regulations operate by 2016 at the very latest. Agreement has been reached on the option preferred by the Commission which has an easier set of targets than had been demanded by Parliament, both in terms of timescale and complexity. However, as a compromise, the recast will include the flexibility that Member States can, if they want, adopt Parliament’s preferred approach.
The current Directive only imposes a collection target of 4kgs per person for each member state, a figure that is already nearly doubled in the UK. The UK WEEE Regulations then require ‘producers’ – manufacturers, importers and own brand sellers – to pay the collection and treatment costs for all household WEEE based on a market share approach. The system does not encourage growth in WEEE recycling as there is no requirement to collect more each year.
The recast is designed to change that position by applying a similar target system to packaging and batteries ie targets on producers based on the amount of electrical equipment (EEE) they place on the market. Parliament had wanted a target to recycle 85% of WEEE by 2016, but it would have been extremely tricky calculating the amount of WEEE as apart from what is already collected for recycling, no-one knows what is being otherwise discarded. Some of it ends up in landfill, but much of it will be in lofts and garden sheds or recycled with other things and just not tracked as WEEE. The commission wanted a 45% collection target of EEE placed onto the market by 2016 and 65% by 2020 and it seems that they have won the argument although the 65% is likely to be required by 2019.
As always, the devil is in the detail and we are not yet privy to that. It is due to be agreed in Parliament by the end of January at which stage, member states will then have 2 years to implement new Regulations to meet the 2016 and 2019 target dates. This is likely to have a fundamental impact on the UK WEEE Regulations as it is likely to see the targets placed on both household and non-household WEEE. The UK currently achieves around 45% on household EEE but barely 5% is reported on non-household and our total level of collection in the UK is reported as only around 30%. Initially, the real challenge is therefore likely to be more about data capture than actual collection and recycling levels, but there will also be a significant challenges in implementing these new requirements in a way that does not leave expose producers to excessive cost.
