European Commission considers revision of WEEE Directive

The European Commission has started an evaluation of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. The purpose of this evaluation is to examine whether the provisions are still fit for purpose and to identify potential for improvement. The process is likely to be followed by a revision of the directive.

The evaluation will focus on those objectives of the directive that have proven particularly challenging in the past, including:

• achieving the collection targets for WEEE
• ensuring proper treatment of WEEE
• applying extended producer responsibility (especially in online sales), and
• combating illegal activities

Interested stakeholders were able to participate in a public consultation on the evaluation that ran until 3 November.

Landbell Group company, European Recycling Platform contributed with a position paper in which it argued, among other things, for a new calculation method for collection rates, as the current system, which is based on average put-on-market volumes, is no longer suitable in view of the longer lifetime of products, in particular those with currently huge growth rates (for example, solar PV modules or heat pumps).

For many product categories, this makes it impossible to achieve the current collection target of 65% as it is based on the past three years put-on-market volumes. Instead, a target based on the volumes available for collection would be more reasonable.

A further public consultation is to follow early next year. The adoption of the evaluation by the European Commission is planned for the fourth quarter of 2023.