Government launches WEEE mark II consultation

UK electronics retailers and manufacturers are being urged to have their say on proposed changes to controversial e-waste legislation that would significantly tighten the regulations governing the disposal and recycling of IT and electronic equipment.

The government launched a new consultation last week following EU proposals late last year that the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and the Restriction on the use of certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directives be overhauled.

Both directives have been widely criticised by environmental groups for failing to crack down on the unsafe disposal of potentially harmful equipment and allowing large quantities of waste to be shipped illegally to treatment facilities in Africa and Asia.

Under the new proposals, EU member states would be given greater powers to inspect and monitor producers, retailers and recyclers of electronic equipment, impose more stringent reporting requirements on firms handling e-waste, and even set binding annual targets that would require manufacturers to collect 65 per cent of the average weight of products placed on the market in the two preceding years.

The proposals follow research from the EU suggesting that the current version of the WEEE directive was being widely flouted, with more than half the e-waste produced across the region being shipped to sub-standard treatment facilities inside or outside the EU, while 13 per cent was ending up in landfill.

The proposed changes were widely welcomed by green groups, but they prompted opposition from EICTA, the lobby group representing the information and communications technology and consumer electronics industries in the EU, which argued that the EU's e-waste figures overstated the scale of the problem and ignored equipment being recycled safely by firms outside authorised schemes.

Now the UK Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has invited feedback on the proposed changes from UK firms as it seeks to finalise its position on the new regulations before they are presented to the European Parliament this autumn.

"The UK welcomes the Commission's intention to strengthen the Directives, with further steps to limit the environmental impact of waste equipment," explained a spokesman for the department. "However, we are concerned that the WEEE proposals in particular present some significant challenges for British businesses."