Consumers will be able to return electrical equipment at its end of life free of charge and send it for re-use and recycling, under EU rules agreed by EU Member States and the European Parliament Oct. 11.
The directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment is expected to largely eliminate risks to the environment from its disposal.
A related proposal on the restriction of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment should ensure that substances that pose a risk at the waste stage are no longer used in new equipment if appropriate replacements are available.
Member States will have to set up collection systems for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and electronic equipment, take measures so that the waste electronics is collected separately and achieve a binding target of 4 kg per capita/per year for the separate collection of WEEE from private households. All costs from the collection points to the environmentally sound treatment, re-use and recycling will be covered by producers for their own products.
They will have to provide a financial guarantee at the moment a new product is put on the market. This financial guarantee shall ensure that the management of the waste will be paid by the producer once the equipment reaches its end of life.
The producer will, however, also have the choice of either managing the waste on an individual basis or participating in collective schemes. This is an important departure from existing schemes where producers pay a flat rate contribution for the recycling of waste from so-called historical products.
Such schemes are still necessary to collect funds for the recycling of old products for which no provisions have been made at the time when they were put on the market and, for these products, this system will continue to apply for a certain time. However, once the new rules will be fully implemented, producers who design their products for re-use and recycling will be rewarded by lower costs for the treatment of their waste.
The Parliament and the Council also agreed to a ban on four heavy metals (lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium) and the brominated flame retardants PBB and PBDE from 1July 2006. Existing national measures on these substances can continue to apply until that date, by which they have to be replaced by the new Community rules. A list of exemptions for certain applications for which currently there is no technical replacement shall be reviewed periodically with a view to progressively reducing these exemptions.