A consultation has begun to look at how treatment facilities dealing with electrical waste can meet tighter permitting controls due to be introduced at the end of this year in the European Union. The comment session has been promulgated by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is seeking comments on proposed changes to the treatment of electrical waste as required under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive.
Starting Jan. 1, 2006, these facilities will need to apply for waste management licenses with conditions that will ensure that waste electrical equipment and its parts and components are recovered as far as possible.
More than 100 organizations are expected to be invited to comment within the 3 month consultation period ending Aug. 19, 2005.
'This initiative is designed to improve the environmental performance of the facilities that treat electrical waste disposal and ensure the infrastructure is in place to meet the directive's requirements. As a consequence we hope recycling in this sector is increased and waste for final disposal is reduced,” said Ben Bradshaw, local environment minister'.
Article 6 of the WEEE Directive imposes requirements for the treatment of WEEE. The Directive is due to be transposed this summer and comes into effect from January 2006. The DTI are responsible for transposing the rest of the Directive and have already consulted on draft regulations.
Defra and the Welsh Assembly Government propose the following amendments to the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 (S.I. 1994/1078 as amended) to transpose the permitting requirements of the WEEE Directive and to make provision for exemptions in respect of operations involving WEEE:
According to DEFRA, any site license that authorizes the treatment of WEEE will need to include such conditions for its storage and treatment as are necessary to ensure the requirements and technical requirements set out in Article 6 and Annexes II and III of the WEEE directive are met.
Conditions will specify that best available treatment recovery and recycling techniques be applied to WEEE through waste license conditions.
Conditions will specify that as a minimum, WEEE is treated by the removal of all fluids and that the treatment standards outlined in Annex II of the WEEE directive are met.
Existing site operators must apply to modify their license to conform with the WEEE Directive if they wish to treat WEEE from January 2006.
Existing operators who rely on a registered exemption must apply for the new WEEE treatment exemption to be registered or a new license if they wish to treat WEEE after January 2006.
Where an application has been made by existing operators for either a modification or new license before March 31, 2006, operators may treat WEEE on or after January 2006 notwithstanding that the application has yet to be determined so long as the operator complies with the Directive standards.