There been a lot of activity around Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) this week. Of most note is WEEE producer compliance scheme Repic's decision to bring judicial review proceedings over what it calls the “the Government’s failure to close loopholes in the system designed to ensure that WEEE items are recycled”. Read the MRW news story here. It will be interesting to see how this develops.
Repic chief executive Philip Morton calls the WEEE rules "a model of bad regulation" and says they encourage profiteering rather than sound environmental practice. Is he right? And is this also an issue for other aspects of environmental legislation?
Andrea Height, deputy editor, MRW
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The problem of non compliance with the WEEE Directive is not just an environmental one, nor is it confined to the UK. There’s a huge economic issue around the value of the materials contained in the electronic waste exported from the EU
ReplyDeleteA report from UK-based energy and climate consultancy, AEA Technology, estimates that the following yields would be possible from the 9 million tonnes of e-scrap generated each year in Europe:
2.3 million tonnes of ferrous metal
1.2 million tonnes of non-ferrous metals including-
652 000 tonnes of copper,
336,000 tonnes of aluminium,
162,000 tonnes of heavy metals,
12,000-27,000 tonnes of lead,
6-8 tonnes of mercury
Plus
1.2 million tonnes of plastics
156,000 tonnes of flame retardants
336000 tonnes of glass.
All of these materials could be used in manufacturing within the EU and the cost of buying raw materials to replace them, combined with the loss of employment in the recycling industry is enormous.
More: http://electronic-recycling.blogspot.com