More than five years on from the date of their first publication, the European Commission has published proposals to revise the original texts of the WEEE and RoHS Directives. 

Reasons for revision

Both the WEEE and RoHS Directives were subject to review by the European Commission as a matter of course; the Commission is obliged to review the legislation it is responsible for on a periodic basis.  The review process involved both consultations with interested parties (eg manufacturers, trade associations, enforcement authorities) and studies undertaken by consultancies on the Commission's behalf.

According to the Commission, the review process identified a number of areas for potential improvement.  Of particular prominence was the collection and treatment of electronic waste in the EU: it was revealed that only about a third of this waste was being treated in line with the requirements of the WEEE Directive, with the remaining two-thirds going to landfill and potentially sub-standard treatment sites or even traded illegally to non-EU countries.  Also of prominence were difficulties in the implementation and enforcement of the WEEE and RoHS Directives across EU Member States, in part because the texts of these directives lacked detail or proved ambiguous.

Changes for manufacturers

While certain changes suggested in the proposed revisions of the WEEE and RoHS Directives are to be welcomed, others pose major challenges for manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment and will be a focus for lobbying activities by manufacturers and their trade associations in 2009.

Welcome changes include improved clarity over the scope of the RoHS Directive, together with new definitions that provide a greater degree of legal certainty.  The Commission has also taken steps to link the WEEE and RoHS Directives to related pieces of EU legislation, such as the Waste Framework Directive and REACH Regulation on chemicals use.

Major challenges are, however, posed by the proposed changes for manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment to become directly responsible for meeting collection targets for waste electronics (governments currently hold this responsibility) and pay for the collection of waste electronics from consumers' homes rather than from designated collection facilities.  For manufacturers, the cost implications of these two proposed changes alone are astronomic.  They are burdensome and would most likely stifle innovation.

Next steps

The proposed revisions of the WEEE and RoHS Directives will now be scrutinised by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers through a process called co-decision.  This is likely to take some months and extend over the close and re-election of the Parliament in the summer.  Running in parallel will be lobbying campaigns by manufacturers and their trade associations and special interest groups like environmental non-governmental organisations.  Such campaigns will be directed at both individual MEPs and national ministries with responsibility for implementing WEEE and RoHS in Member States.

AMDEA is currently drafting responses to represent the views of our members to UK Government and more widely.  We will also be meeting with government officials to raise our concerns.  2009 is already shaping up to be a year of another round of lobbying on the environmental legislation affecting electrical and electronic equipment.

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