EU LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK

Frequently Asked Questions on the WEEE and RoHS Directives

EU Legislative Framework for Electronic Scrap

- Overview
- Recycling / Recovery definitions
- WEEE Implementation
- WEEE Executive Forum

Overview

The Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), (2002/96/EC), aims to increase the recycling and recovery of WEEE through mechanical recycling, feedstock recycling and energy recovery. The Directive requires separation of most E&E Equipment from unsorted waste in Europe. This E&E waste will then be collected recycled and re-used under the financial responsibility of manufacturers. All WEEE,which has been ‘separately collected’, will need to be sent for specialist treatment and recovery. If it is not separately collected it does not need to be sent for the specialist treatment and recovery processes specified in the WEEE Directive. However it will still need to be managed according to general waste management controls.

The Directive on WEEE requires the separate treatment of plastics containing brominated flame retardants (BFRs) prior to recycling, energy recovery or disposal. In practice, in many EU countries separation of all flame-retardant plastics will be required for WEEE. For example, this is already a legislative requirement in Denmark.

By 31 December 2006, the Directive requires to separate at least 4 kg of WEEE per inhabitant per year from usual waste stream. Out of this collected WEEE, manufacturers of “IT & Telecommunication equipment" (computers, fax, telephone, copiers, printer) and "consumer equipment" (TV, radio) will have, by 31 December 2006, to recover (i.e. recycling plus energy recovery) a minimum of 75% by an average weight per appliance re-use and recycle component, material and substance of a minimum 65% by an average weight per appliance. This means that the energy out of the plastic fraction can count for 10% energy recovery via incineration, smelters or feedstock recycling.

The WEEE Directive sets out criteria for treatment that must be carried out on separately collected WEEE before it is sent for further processing and recycling/ recovery. This includes the removal of certain hazardous substances (e.g. lead, mercury) and components that contain them. In addition, all liquids and some items such as printed circuit boards have to be removed. The treatment may only be carried out by properly licensed operators.

The Directive’s requirement to increase mechanical recycling is an advantage for plastics containing BFRs as they offer high level of stability during the recycling process. The separate treatment requirement of BFR plastics will in turn facilitate the recycling and recovery of plastics containing BFRs for which there is a wide range of tested recycling and recovery technologies.

European Member States have to set up E&E waste collection facilities by 13 August 2005. Individual Member States are already starting to put their legislative frameworks in place. As previously stated, E&E manufacturers or recyclers acting on their behalf will have to reach recovery and recycling targets of the collected E&E waste by 31 December 2006. This requires action now in order to ensure that future WEEE meets the new requirements for recyclability and recoverability in time with the 2006 deadline.

Recycling / Recovery

Recovery does not mean “collect”; recovery is a waste management term and it includes for example mechanical recycling, incineration with energy recovery, feedstock recycling in smelter processes and composting.

Recycling also has a specific meaning and means the reprocessing of material into a new material, e.g. smelting steel scrap into new steel product and glass into new glass or molding plastic into new plastic.

So what is the difference between the recovery and recycling targets? This is probably best explained through an example. The recovery and recycling /reuse targets for Category 1 equipment (large household appliances) are 80% and 75% respectively. This target only applies once waste has been separately collected. If 100 tonnes of waste fridges, washing machines, tumble driers etc has been collected, 75 tonnes of this material would need to be reused or recycled. A further 5 tonnes, to make up to 80 tonnes, could be reused, recycled or incinerated with energy recovery

The WEEE Directive includes a list of categories of electrical and electronic equipment. These are presented in Annex 1A of the Directive. There are 10 categories ranging from large household appliances to automatic dispensers. Annex 1B of the Directives lists some example products within each of these categories. However, this is only a list of examples and other products, which fit into the categories, are also included.

Table 1: Categories of electrical and electronic equipment covered by the WEEE Directive

A producer may decide that they wish to set up a “closed loop” system to ensure their products are returned to them and then carry out the necessary treatment, recycling and recovery of their products themselves. However, this will not be a legal requirement. Producer responsibility is likely to be interpreted as ‘financial’ producer responsibility. In other words, producers will need to be able to provide some evidence that they have contributed towards the financial costs of treating, recycling and recovering any WEEE, which has been separately collected. Additionally, producers will need to establish or contribute to systems which allow businesses to return their WEEE. The costs of returning, treating and recycling WEEE will need to be met by producers.

WEEE Implementation

WEEE has been formulated primarily in juridical terms. For this reason and because it is a so-called “Article-175-Directive” (non-single-market) it leaves room for individual Member States to formulate their own interpretation and to define their own implementation rules. Such processes have the danger that in the end a big diversity in the operationalization could occur and a corresponding distortion of the EU Common Market would happen. The common element however in what all EU Member States and stakeholders have is that they all want to serve the environmental intent of WEEE as well as possible while keeping the overall costs as low as possible. The timeline is as outlined in Table 2.

Table 2: Timeline for WEEE Implementation

The WEEE-Directive is based on the experiences in WEEE policy of a few European countries. Requirements such as collection per capita, treatment standards and recovery targets are prescribed in the Directive, but how this will work in practice is not yet clear. Moreover, the success of existing national systems is unclear and has not been evaluated. In general, for the Member States the WEEE implementation presents challenges which require both creative and pragmatic solutions. Specific issues on WEEE plastics have mostly not been worked out so far. Plastics and flame retardants are not seen as one of the priority issues for regulators in their attempts to ensure the workability of the Directive. This gives the opportunity to propose solutions.

It is likely that each EU Member State will adopt a different system resulting in high complexity and cost for the E&E industry. As a consequence, there is a need to harmonize the national systems as much as possible. This will be supported as well by the differences in the geographical prerequisites of the countries. In the northern parts of the EU, where heating in winter time is more important, energy recovery will play a bigger role. This is reflected as well in the number and the capacity of state-of-the-art incinerators. Germany operates for example close to 60 waste-to-energy municipal solid waste incinerators, where co-combustion of WEEE-plastics with MSW could be possible.

For further details on the regulatory developments regarding the WEEE and RoHS Directives, click here (link to sub-section “Regulatory overview in the EU”)

WEEE Executive Forum

There are already national take-back systems for WEEE in Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Norway. In these countries, national organizations are coordinating the take-back with the recyclers. Therefore, these national organizations become an important target for communication and can be an example for other EU countries. The national organizations in the above EU Member States have created in 2002 the WEEE Executive Forum. This Forum exchanges ideas and compares information between its members, which are the producers/importers of E&E equipment. Furthermore, it also provides information and experience to EU countries developing take-back systems from zero. The existing national systems are further described below.
Note that in other (big) EU countries such as Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain, such a system is not in place.
The table below outlines which categories of WEEE are managed by the six countries having set up collective recycling systems in Europe, in accordance with the provisions of existing national legislation.

Table 3: Take-back systems in Western Europe

WEEE Take-back systems	Austria	Belgium	Netherlands	Norway	Sweden	Switzerland
Large/Small household appliances	X					X
IT&T
Consumer equipment
Others *		X	X	X	X

Others: Lighting Eq., Electrical and Electronic Tools, Toys, leisure and sports eq.,
medical devices, Monitoring and Control instruments, Automatic dispensers.
= in whole
x = in part

For further information on the success factors and actual results of the take-back systems in Europe, please click here to see the presentation from Willem Canneman, Chairman of the Executive Forum