The hazardous costs of electrical waste

Electronic goods, whether washing machines or mobile phones, can cause damage to the environment long after their working life is finished. Often dumped on landfill sites, or incinerated with other forms of household rubbish, they can have shockingly harmful effects on the environment, releasing pollutants into the soil, air or groundwater.

Aware of the detrimental side-effects of such practices - not least the gaping hole in the ozone layer - the European Commission proposed a directive on waste from electrical and electronic equipment (known as WEEE) which was agreed three years ago. Laggard member states including the UK and Malta have been slow to transpose the directive into national law, although it should have been applicable in EU15 countries since last July. Industry, too, is experiencing its fair share of technical hitches.

The WEEE directive focuses on recovery and recycling of waste products, all of which is to be financed by industry, thus providing more incentive to manufacture durable goods. WEEE is complemented by a directive on the restriction of the use of hazardous substances (RoHS), primarily the heavy metals that can be found in supposedly clean, light forms of technology such as laptops. Examples are lung-damaging cadmium found in cables, connectors and batteries, and brain-damaging mercury, which is sometimes used to illuminate LCD displays.

Both directives place on industry greater responsibility for reducing the environmental footprint of electronic products.

According to Commission estimates, each of us currently produces between 17 and 20 kilograms of waste electric and electronic equipment per year. In 1998, the majority of this, amounting to six million tonnes, ended up leaking into rivers and eating into the ozone layer. The situation can only have been improved by the legislation, but not by as much as was planned. A report published last month by the UK Department of Trade and Industry showed that, while European firms are reaching collection targets set by EU law, they are having trouble meeting the recovery targets. Most member states are managing to collect the 4kg per person that is demanded, with Sweden actually managing 14kgs per person, but hitting the 80% metal recovery requirement is more difficult, despite the existence of advanced technological means. Small items are particularly problematic.

Industry is critical of the broad disparities in national laws incorporating the directives. "The main problem is that the legislation is being implemented in different ways in different member states. Non-harmonised regulations cost industry a lot of money in administrative costs," says Ramon Launa, environmental manager at the European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association.

The way that legislation has been transposed in Bulgaria and Romania, two countries that are about to join the EU, will create problems, says Pascal Leroy, in charge of government affairs at CECED, the European Committee of Household Appliance Manufacturers, which represents manufacturers such as Electrolux and Whirlpool. CECED believes these countries have interpreted legislation so bluntly that they will place impossible targets on industry.

Some environmentalists argue that big business deserves tough targets for feeding the disposable culture in which we live. Leroy is adamant, however, that industry has gone to great pains to tackle the issue. "There is a lot of expertise in dealing with waste, a lot of state of the art technology," he says. He points out that CECED is engaged in the voluntary process of drafting recycling specifications for hydrocarbons (contained in fridge-cooling systems) with the WEEE Forum, an association of voluntary industry-driven recycling systems, and the European Electronics Recyclers Association. Hydrocarbons, unlike their predecessors chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), do not harm the ozone layer, but they can explode under pressure, harming workers in recycling plants.

In the meantime, the Commission has taken concerns about lack of harmonisation on board, launching this year a review of the laws. According to a report produced by the Commission’s scientific arm, the Joint Research Centre, countries which did not previously have an eco-friendly culture lack the know-how to put the law effectively into practice. Proper implementation would require not only the establishment of simple initiatives such as collection points - in some cases, it also implies real disruption to industrial supply chains feeding exempt (eg, military) and non-exempt sectors. Once set in motion, practices would also have to be tested and adapted, a process which takes time. Achieving EU-wide compliance with the laws may take a few more years yet.

Electronic goods, whether washing machines or mobile phones, can cause damage to the environment long after their working life is finished. Often dumped on landfill sites, or incinerated with other forms of household rubbish, they can have shockingly harmful effects on the environment, releasing pollutants into the soil, air or groundwater.

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