Industry Tip: EU's New WEEE Directive Will Take Effect

The EU WEEE Directive has finally reached an official announcement after undergoing a long period of revision of nearly 4 years. On June 7 this year, the European Union Council passed a revision of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) and it is expected that it will officially take effect in the official gazette soon.

The European Union officially began implementing the WEEE Directive in 2005. It is the third largest green directive in addition to RoHS, ErP, and other green barriers. It requires all manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment to assume responsibility for the cost of scrapped products. The revision of the WEEE Directive was quite a twist. As early as December 2008, the European Commission initiated the amendment proposal. Until January 19 this year, the European Parliament passed the Second Reading Order.

The main contents of this revision include the following three aspects:

The first is to set two maximum recycling targets: 4 years after the directive takes effect, the EU member states must collect 45% of the average weight of the electrical and electronic equipment put into the domestic market every year. The collection rate should reach 65%.

The second is to expand the product range and strive to cover all electrical and electronic equipment, such as solar photovoltaic panels, equipment containing ozone-depleting substances, and mercury-containing fluorescent lamps. After six years of entry into force of this legislation, these substances will have to be collected and disposed of properly.

The third is to increase the environmental responsibility of all operators (eg manufacturers, distributors and consumers) involved in the life cycle of the electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), such as the requirements for the collection of retailers, in the retail stores selling electrical and electronic equipment. At least 400 square meters or in its immediate area, retailers should be responsible for the free collection of small quantities of end-user generated end-of-life products.

The WEEE Directive covers related upstream and downstream industries such as home appliances, lighting equipment, electronic and electrical tools, batteries, IT products and other electrical and electronic products, medical equipment, and toys. This revision is a clear signal for the EU to increase the recovery rate of the electrical and electronic equipment. It will directly increase the company's post-sales cost pressure and raise the overall cost by at least 10%.

The negative impact of the EU WEEE Directive is a long-term release process. However, inspection and quarantine officials found that many companies had weak awareness of quality management, and they were more aware of the WEEE directive but did not respond adequately and had weak anti-risk capabilities.

In order to further broaden the export channels in the tide of continuous upgrading of environmental protection barriers, the inspection and quarantine department reminded related companies that the WEEE Directive should be taken as a long-term system project and appropriate preventive and control measures should be taken as soon as possible.

First of all, we must do a good job of preparatory work for in-depth “reading and understanding” directives, and adjust the R&D, design, production, procurement and sales of raw materials, etc., on this basis; increase capital, technology, management and marketing, and product structure. The targeted investment in investment models and other aspects provide strong support for the ecological design and manufacturing of green products.

Secondly, when designing and manufacturing electrical and electronic equipment products, they should fully consider and contribute to their maintenance, upgrading, reuse, disassembly and recycling, and establish the most effective technology system for treatment, recycling, and recycling, and increase product collection rate. .

Thirdly, to strengthen the understanding of the EU countries’ arrangements for the collection of electrical and electronic wastes for their enterprises, study and draw on the systems and specific practices of foreign companies to collect waste of electrical and electronic equipment, and the powerful enterprises can formulate overseas recovery strategies from safety. From the point of view of sexuality and economy, choose the mode of recovery, reutilization and recovery cost that suits you.