The European Parliament’s Environment Committee voted by 52 votes to 1, with 5 abstentions on its second reading recommendation on the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive that aims to make existing rules even tougher.
However, the crystal ball suggests that the second reading is unlikely to receive widespread approval and, as with the RoHS Recast, a series of trialogue meetings involving the European Parliament (EP), European Commission (EC) and Council of Ministers will have to thrash out a compromise.
Only a third of WEEE is separately collected and treated appropriately.
The EC wishes to increase recovery rates and agrees with the EP target of 85% by 2016, while the Council prefers a phased-in approach of 45% by 2016 rising to 65% in 2020.
Other proposals include retailers taking back “very small volume’s of WEEE” with no purchase necessary and at no charge.
While the Council and EP want an “open scope” the EC would prefer additional product only after an impact analysis.
Ten categories of EEE would be reduced to five although the EP prefers six.
R&D products for business purposes would be excluded although there was consensus that photovoltaic panels would fall in scope.
Clearly there will me much discussion and compromise before we can look forward to a WEEE Recast Directive in 2014.
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