Environment and health: waste electrical and electronic equipment WEEE

2000/0158(COD)

The Commission presented a report on the implementation of EU waste legislation for the period 2010-2012.

Of the 27 Member States under the obligation to report, most have submitted replies to the implementation questionnaires for the directives this report covers, namely:

·         Directive 2008/98/EC on waste,

·         Directive 86/278/EEC on sewage sludge,

·         Directive 1999/31/EC on landfilling,

·         Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste,

·         Directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE),

·         Directive 2006/66/EC on batteries and accumulators.

Quality of reporting: not all Member States have fulfilled the obligation laid down in the Directives to report to the Commission on their implementation every three years. Some did not submit replies to the Implementation Questionnaire 2010-2012.

The Commission noted the highly variable nature of the quality and accuracy of the reports and information provided. Answers frequently only referred to national legislation or to answers given in previous reporting periods, without providing further information on the implementation of the directives on the ground, even when this was explicitly requested.

The Commission considered that the triennial implementation reports prepared by the Member States have not proven effective for verifying compliance with the directives, their implementation and their impact.

Directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE): the current exercise covers the old WEEE Directive, which has since been replaced by the Directive 2012/19/EU.

The main findings are as follows:

·         all Member States have set up collection systems and have introduced:

(i) provisions for the environmentally sound treatment of WEEE;

(ii) measures to ensure financing by producers of the collection, treatment, recovery and environmentally sound disposal of WEEE from private households;

(iii) measures to ensure that producers provide relevant information to consumers and to WEEE treatment facilities.

·         more WEEE was collected, re-used/recycled and recovered between 2010 and 2012 than in the previous reporting period;

·         the amount of WEEE collected from households in the EU-27 increased from 2.97 million tonnes by the end of 2009 to 3.02 million tonnes by the end of 2012; 17 Member States met the target of collecting 4 kilogrammes per inhabitant of WEEE from households;

·         most Member States have achieved the specific re-use / recycling and recovery targets of the Directive: as far as consumer equipment is concerned, 26 Member States have reached the target of re-use / recycling 65% and the 75% valuation target. They also achieved the 50% reuse / recycling target and the 70% recycling target for household appliances.

·         most Member States reached the Directive’s category-specific targets for re-use/recycling and recovery. With regard to consumer equipment, 26 Member States reached the 65% re-use/recycling target and the 75% recovery target. They also achieved the 50% re-use/recycling target and the 70% recovery target for household appliances.

General conclusions: the Commission considered that Member States should make greater efforts to improve the quality, reliability and comparability of data for assessing waste management performance. They could do this by benchmarking reporting methodologies and introducing a data quality check report, so that when reporting on the achievement of the targets set out in the legislation, Member States use the most recent and harmonised methodology.

The Commission recalled that in the recent review of waste policy and legislation, it proposed to repeal provisions obliging Member States to produce triennial implementation reports and to base compliance monitoring exclusively on quality statistical data that Member States must provide the Commission with annually.