Study On EU Directives For Management Of Waste Electrical And Electronic Equipments

The obvious emergence of problems that result from waste electrical and electronic equipments (WEEE) has the close relationship with the level of economic development in countries or areas. The experiences of developed countries or areas make clear that as long as the production and consumption of electrical and electronic equipments (EEE) are creasing, the management of WEEE is inevitable and necessary.To legislate on WEEE is an important way to solve the problems resulting from WEEE. The meaning of management of WEEE in legislation is to assign the responsibilities of WEEE management between the EEE producers, distributors, consumers, recyclers and government. The first step to legislate on WEEE is to define the concept of WEEE. WEEE means any electrical and electronic equipment which the user discards. If we intend to cover WEEE as many as possible in legislation, we may use the regulations on the applicable scope in EU WEEE directive for reference."Extended Producer Responsibility"(EPR) acting as a policy principle has been implemented into the legislation on management of WEEE. At first, EPR is formulated as a strategy by Thomas Lindhqvist, the Sweden environmental economics expert, in a study commissioned by Sweden government. The core of EPR is to make the manufacturer of the product responsible for the entire life-cycle of the product and especially for the take-back, recycling and final disposal of the product. German Ordinance on the Avoidance of Packaging Waste (Packaging Ordinance) incorporated EPR concept in fact, although the concept as such was not used in Germany in the first years of the 1990s. Under this pioneering legislation, Germany implemented the first EPR programme in practice. The Packaging Ordinance is the prototype and case for proposed legislation on special streams of waste from batteries, automobiles, electronic equipments, etc. in other countries. Serving as an initiatory legislation, it has deep impact. After that, more countries justified EPR concept and more researchers studied on it. The primary contribution of OECD in researching EPR concept is to express the view that the producer should assign the primary responsibility. Two new concepts"Extended Product Responsibility"and"Product Stewardship"evolve from EPR concept in America. Both of them contribute the development of EPR by noting it should be a shared responsibility. The original concept of EPR only emphasizes the producer be responsibility party, but not express how big the responsibility he has and whether other actors in the product chain have responsibilities. At present, researchers have come to an agreement that sharing responsibilities is inherent under EPR but still have divergence on how to share responsibilities. It seems fair and reasonable to share responsibilities among all the actors in the product chain but this is only a beautiful dream in practice. Because no matter through mandatory or voluntary (industry-based) approaches to implement EPR, the actors involved in the product chain are several fixed actors. It is impossible to include all actors involved in practice. Under the premise of recognizing shared responsibilities, therefore, it is feasible that the producer takes primary responsibility.While the concept being developed, EPR has been applied in the management of waste from batteries, automobiles, electronic equipments, etc. Thereby, many foreign researchers consider that EPR has evolved from an environmental protect strategy to an important preventive policy principle guiding the legislation and practice on management of waste streams from special products.EU directives for management of WEEE——WEEE directive and RoHS directive are the focus points in the field of WEEE legislation all over the world. WEEE directive, serving as the framework law in EU, is paid more attention by other countries not only for its most extensive applicable scope but also for its comprehensive content. The key issues it involved are the scope of the WEEE it covers; range of producer responsibility and allocation of responsibility to other players; funding mechanism; infrastructure for the take-back and recycling system; historical and orphaned products; target setting and its reflection on the objectives of it. RoHS directive drafted out with WEEE directive. It is a prohibition in content but for benefiting in reducing hazardous substances in WEEE originally, it also makes great sense. Study on the implementation of WEEE directive is a blank of domestic research. At present, the implementation of WEEE directive is not optimistic owing to that the timetable of implementation is delayed by all kinds of reasons. To view the prospect of its implementation, harmonization in some fields between member nations is necessary.