European Parliament Passes Law on Electronics Recycling

The European Parliament  passed a law requiring manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment to reduce hazardous substances and to pay for the recycling of their products. The law, passed this week, despite industry opposition, covers practically every electrical item from hairdryers to personal computers. It is the second EU policy that requires producers to take responsibility for their products when they are scrapped. (The first law was for automobiles.)

Discarded electronic equipment -- particularly computers and their components -- creates growing mountains of junk electronics scrap in the industrialized world, due to the increasing sales and rapid product obsolescence. Until recently, few in the U.S. paid attention to this problem.

"Electronic equipment is one of the largest known sources of heavy metals, toxic materials and organic pollutants in municipal trash waste," said Leslie Byster of Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. "The new European law sets high standards for producer responsibility and tougher requirements for attaining higher recycling rates. If the high-tech companies in Europe can follow the Directive, there is no reason to believe that they can't follow the same practices in the U.S. and elsewhere."

The intent of the law is to make producers design environmentally friendlier products with less hazardous substances that can be more easily reused or recycled. The new EU law requires:1) producers to pay for recycling of their "obsolete" products, 2)more aggressive recycling (an increase from 50% to 70%), 3) producers to pay for collecting waste equipment from households, as well as for recycling and disposing of it, and 4) more stringent requirements to further promote design for the environment, phase out of toxic materials and resource efficiency thinking.

In the proposal dealing with restrictions on hazardous substances, the assembly-resisted pressure from the Environment Committee to add to the six substances targeted for prohibition - lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and the brominated flame retardant groups PBB and PBDE.

"We strongly support the E.U. initiative which makes producers ultimately responsible for the electronic products they manufacture. U.S. taxpayers should not have to pay for electronic waste collection, recycling and disposal," said Michael Bender of the Mercury Policy Project. "Having producers assume responsibility creates a powerful incentive to design products that are cleaner and safer; more durable, reusable, repairable, upgradable; and easier to disassemble and recycle."