Waste policies ‘endanger’ environmental benefits

European waste policies risk undermining each other and wiping out environmental benefits, according to Orgalime, the engineering industry association.

The association’s comments come as the EU begins to review a 2002 directive on the safe disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). The WEEE directive sets out rules for taking back and recycling equipment including radios, ovens and televisions.

But other new and proposed EU laws have left some industries unsure where to invest. "We do not have a coherent approach to environment and energy issues," according to Adrian Harris, secretary-general of Orgalime.

Harris said industry had put a lot of money into setting up systems to collect waste products at the end of their life span, in line with WEEE. The European Parliament last Tuesday (13 February) voted for waste collection streams based on materials, such as metals or plastics, not products, under the EU waste framework directive.

He added that the Parliament’s calls for a new eco-design policy in 2010 could duplicate or contradict work to draw up environmental standards for 19 products under the energy products directive.

EU proposals on energy efficiency are also being developed without sufficient attention to existing design and waste stream legislation, according to Harris.

"If a new law comes out we will of course do our best to follow it," he says. "But there’s a problem with chopping and changing."

WEEE problems began as soon as the directive was agreed in December 2002, with industry and consumer groups complaining that it was not clear where waste products should be taken for recycling.

According to WEEE, member states have to gather, on average, at least 4kg of electric waste per person, starting at the end of 2006. Ten countries still have no working ‘take back’ scheme.

Orgalime is claiming that collecting waste fridges and TVs is not the only WEEE problem. Harris said that a fragmented EU market is making it impossible for investors to develop products that can be sold across 27 member states.

The legal basis chosen for WEEE allows member states to implement the directive in different ways and, according to Orgalime, has led to a patchwork of national and regional criteria electrical equipment must meet.

The industry group says the legal basis for parts of WEEE should be changed from the environment to the internal market, which would mean imposing standard EU-wide criteria for new products.

A spokeswoman for Stavros Dimas, the environment commissioner, said: "Waste is a very complex problem but we are trying to take account of the different waste streams as consistently as possible…whatever we do in the waste framework directive will not affect the application of WEEE."

European waste policies risk undermining each other and wiping out environmental benefits, according to Orgalime, the engineering industry association.