The directive of the European Union dealing with Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is, in my opinion, a ruling with the wrong title. It is legislation which, when taken at face value, is very well intended, as its aim is to minimize the impact of electrical and electronic products on the environment during a product’s life time and, most importantly, after it becomes waste.
Broadly speaking, the WEEE directive sets out to apply itself to an enormous spectrum of prod-ucts. It then goes on to ensure that producers become responsible for the collection, treatment, recycling and recovery of waste electrical and electronic equipment that they have produced. The financial burden of setting up and operating such a recycling chain is mostly placed on the producer of such equipment. The consumer is then free to return their unwanted electronic or electrical equipment waste for safe disposal and recycling without charge.
Now don’t get me wrong – I firmly believe that initiatives like this are a good thing, a real attempt by the European Union to create a form of legislation which in the long term could really help the environment and make the world a better place in which you and I can live.
However, at this point, I am going to go back to my first line in which I state that, in my opinion, the WEEE directive is a ruling with the wrong title. It should be the Consumer Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (CWEEE) directive. Why? Because it is us, you and me, the consumer, who will ultimately make the decision to recycle responsibly or just throw away our old DVD player, mobile phone, PC, TV set or video console – and not the producer or OEM.
Having traveled around Europe for a number of years both on business and vacation, I am constantly amazed by the different attitudes exhibited by different countries with regard to recycling and what we in the UK still lovingly refer to as “rubbish”. I haven’t studied this with any statistical or scientific viewpoint, just my own observations when I have been staying in hotels, visiting the homes of colleagues, eating in the factory restaurant or enjoying a vacation in a campsite or apartment complex. Just watching the different ways in which people in different countries dispose of everyday things gives a very clear picture of the overall willingness of that country to think about the future of the environment. Encouraging the consumer to think responsibly about how to dispose of electronic and electrical products waste is again, in my opinion, down to two things: education – the why, what and how to recycle – and awareness of the impact that each of us has on the environment.
We have the WEEE directive, which says to companies on a pan-European level: ‘be responsible’ – if you make it, sell it, enjoy the profits of that sale, then you have a duty to dispose of it responsibly. My argument here is that we need the same for consumers. A lot of us still need to be educated as to how we can dispose of things properly, where to go and how to do it. However, it needs to be done in a way which is also pan-European to make us all aware that we have a duty to each other and our environment; hence my case for a CWEEE directive.
Who knows? In future years we may be just as familiar with the companies that recycle our old, broken or obsolete DVD players, PCs, peripherals and mobile phones as we are with those that design and produce them.
Now if you’ll excuse me I am just going to explain to my eleven year old daughter the long-term benefits of buying a “lead-free” mobile phone and why she needs to understand what the Directive on Restrictions of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS) is all about.
Chris Warren, Omron
Business development manager
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