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Environmental News Service

STRASBOURG, France, 10 April 2002 -- The European Parliament is determined to ban consumers from throwing old computers, hairdryers, cookers, toasters and other such appliances in the bin with unsorted waste and to make individual producers finance the recycling or safe disposal of electroscrap.

Parliament aims to toughen up the latest version of a draft law aimed at tackling the escalating problem of waste from electrical and electronic equipment, which is piling up at the rate of six million metric tons a year and is the fastest growing waste stream in the European Union.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) Tuesday passed a set of amendments which repeat its first-reading demand for an average compulsory collection target of six kilograms of electroscrap per inhabitant, per year, from private households, to be achieved by December 31, 2005.

But EU environment ministers have agreed to a less stringent four kilo target to be met within the vaguer "36 months" of entry into force of the law.

MEPs want EU Member States to prove that the collection target has been reached and also voted to back the ban with inspection and monitoring facilities but rejected the idea of introducing penalties for consumers who fail to sort their electroscrap.

An amendment supported by a huge majority - 525 votes to nine, with two abstentions - requires Member States to compel producers to provide up front guarantees for the financing of the future disposal of their products. This is in order to discourage irresponsible producers, or "free-riders," from putting environmentally harmful products on the market and leaving other producers to pick up the tab for dealing with the waste left behind when they disappear from the market.

Producers who are on the market at the time the free-rider costs arise to share the costs of dealing with these orphan products. Parliament's amendment specifies that the guarantee can take the form of a recycling insurance, a blocked bank account or a contribution to a joint scheme for financing the management of the waste.

MEPs raised the targets for recovery of large household appliances such as fridges and washing machines to 90 percent, from the Council's 80 percent, and included automatic dispensers in this. They left the Council's re-use and recycling target for large household appliances at 75 percent. They raised the recovery target for items such as PCs, phones, radios and hi-fi equipment to 85 percent, from the Council's 75 percent, and left the Council's re-use and recycling target for those items at 65 percent. They want the deadline for these targets brought forward to 31 December 31, 2005, from the Council's 46 months after the directive becomes law.

Parliament also wants ozone-depleting gases to be removed from all equipment containing them, not just refrigerators and freezers.

At the same time, Parliament adopted a set of amendments to the related law on restricting hazardous substances used in the manufacture of electronic and electrical products. It brought forward one year, to January 1, 2006, the date for phasing out heavy metals and flame retardants.

The parliament is likely to enjoy wide outside backing during the conciliation with EU governments, as it has throughout the legislative process so far. The European Commission welcomed the parliament's "strengthening" of its original proposals and backed it on most major points.

Pan-industry body Orgalime called today's vote "much more consistent with European environmental policy," while the ministers' position was more akin to "a way to shift the burden of dealing with waste from local authorities to industry." Orgalime's 31 member trade federations represent some 100,000 companies generating over 1200 billion euros per year in 21 European countries.

White goods lobby CECED said Parliament had "got the balance right" and had adopted a "far-sighted" package of financing provisions.

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) representing 134 environmental organizations in 25 countries, said parliament took a big step for the environment. "This is an important victory in environmental legislation; making companies responsible individually for the treatment of their products once they are no longer used is an essential incentive for minimizing environmental impacts by improving the environmental characteristics of these products," said EEB Secretary General John Hontelez.

On the other hand, the EEB regrets that the parliament did not follow its Environment Committee in insisting on strong recycling targets. This failure opens the door for some 15 to 20 percent of some equipment such as TVs, computers and phones to be incinerated. The parliament has also failed to include all the spare parts and consumables, in particular, light bulbs, said the environmental umbrella organization.