In recent years, plastics have become key to new developments that are changing our lives and providing the technology to support us in a fast changing world. Plastic consumption is increasing, which results in an increase of plastic waste streams. Even if less than 1% of all waste generated in Western Europe were plastics, the EU has focused on plastic recycling and recovery through different legislative measures on different sectors: packaging, automotive and electrical and electronic appliances. This is being supplemented with a planned Directive on construction waste. In 1994 the EU Packaging Directive (94/62/EEC) was introduced. It sets key objectives for all Member States to recover 50-65% of all packaging placed on the market with overall recycling levels of 25-45% by the end of 2001. Each of the main packaging materials also has to be recycled to a minimum level of 15%. With some exceptions, these levels of recycling and recovery have largely been achieved by EU Member States. The recovery of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) is subject to legislation in Europe in line with the European ELV-Directive (2000/53/EC), which sets targets for the reuse, recycling and energy recovery of such vehicles, including their plastic fraction. In order to reach the ambitious targets set for 2006 and 2015, investments in appropriate technologies have to be made. After more than 5 years of discussions and negotiations a major package of EU laws on the management of electrical and electronic waste and hazardous substances in manufactured equipment entered into force on 13 February 2003 (date of publication in the EU’s Official Journal). Implementation deadlines under the two Directives extend over nearly six years. WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, ROHS for Restriction of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment. Both the WEEE and ROHS Directives are pieces of European legislation which require all European Member States to improve the way in which they manage WEEE. As with all EU Directive, the WEEE and ROHS Directives require the EU national governments to implement EU legislation in order to meet specific requirements. A company operating in the EU is not legally required to meet the requirements of the WEEE Directive itself, but it will be required to meet the requirements of the implementing Member State legislation. Both the WEEE and ROHS Directives are related to each other. The WEEE Directive aims to raise levels of recycling and encourage products to be designed with dismantling and recycling in mind. A key part of this is to make manufacturers and importers (“producers”) of electrical and electronic equipment responsible for meeting the costs of the collection, treatment and recovery of WEEE. If products are designed with this in mind, there is an opportunity to reduce these costs. The ROHS Directive fits into this approach by reducing the amount of hazardous substances used in products. This lessens the potential risks to recycling workers and means that less special handling is required, again leading to a reduction in recycling costs. The WEEE Directive is not a single market Directive. It sets minimum criteria that the individual EU Member States may exceed if they wish. There will thus be different recycling and recovery targets, and different types of organization for achieving these, in each EU Member State. The ROHS Directive is a single market Directive, since it sets product standards. “Single Market” Directives are a specific type of EU legislation that apply to all Member States and must be implemented in the same way to prevent differences in interpretation across the European Union. This is especially important for Directives setting standards for products, since it means that manufacturers will not have to make different products for each Member State. Further details on WEEE and ROHS are outlined below. For further details on the regulatory developments regarding the WEEE and RoHS Directives, click here. Moreover, the EU Commission had planned to work on a Directive which regulates Construction & Demolition Waste (C&D Waste). An EU working document already exists. The EU Commission is now changing its strategy on waste management. While EU legislation requires the recycling of plastic packaging and will do so for plastics from the other regulated waste streams (ELV and WEEE), there is currently no EU requirement for the recycling of plastics from other important applications, e.g. construction materials. Moreover, there is currently discussion to complement the sectoral approach to EU waste policy by new initiatives focusing on given materials (e.g. plastics) rather than on specific end-of-life products (e.g. WEEE).
|