European Parliament Backs Tough Electronic Waste Recycling Targets

This week the European Parliament backed a proposal to re-write the WEEE directive. WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, and the directive sets requirements for the end-of-life management in the growing electrical and electronic product sector. The re-write attempts to address wide disparities in the success of the existing directive, which requires collection of 4kg/person of WEEE. Currently, Sweden tops the ranking of European nations with 16 kg per person of WEEE collected, while Italy collects only 1 kg per person. The proposed directive attempts to level the playing field for WEEE as well; so that the Italians could satisfy the directive if it is shown that Swedish people purchase 16 times more EEE than Italians. Although this is a stretch, it is only fair that targets be set in relation to actual consumer behavior.

Source: TreeHugger