A Step in the Right Direction: Extended Producer Responsibility
Europe has taken the lead on reducing E-waste from electronic products by making producers responsible for taking back their products.
This is known as Extended Producer Responsibility. The aim of EPR is to encourage producers to prevent pollution and reduce resource and energy use in each stage of the product life cycle through changes in product ddesign and process technology. In its widest sense, Producer Responsibility is the principle that producers bear a degree of responsibility for all the environmental impacts of their products. This includes upstream impacts arising from the choice of materials and from the manufacturing process as well as the downstream impacts, i.e. from the use and disposal of products. However, product take-back needs to go hand-in-hand with mandatory legislation to phase-out e-toxics.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) focuses on the responsibility that producers assume for their products at the end of their useful life (post-consumer stage). The model example of EPR is product take-back where a producer takes back a product at the end of its useful life (i.e., when discarded) either directly or through a third party. Other terms used are 'take-back', 'product liability' or 'life cycle product responsibility.'
The European Union (EU) has drafted legislation on Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (the WEEE Directive) based on the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility.
The Europeans have taken the lead on this because:
- The rapid growth of WEEE is a growing concern. The growth of WEEE is about 3 times higher than the growth of the other municipal waste streams.(42)
- The hazardous nature of the products pose significant waste management problems. There are estimates that the 90% of WEEE that is landfilled, incinerated or recovered without any pre-treatment constitutes an important share of various pollutants found in the municipal waste stream(43) (this, of course, does not include the old computers that are in "temporary" storage in people’s garages, basements, etc.)
- Various member states within Europe have already drafted legislation on this subject. This includes the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Finland and Germany. The new draft WEEE Directive, therefore, harmonizes all these countries’ initiatives to allow industry to operate uniformly throughout Europe.
The objective of the WEEE draft directive is to require manufacturers to improve the ddesign of their products in order to avoid the generation of waste and to facilitate the recovery and disposal of electronic scrap. This can be achieved through the phase out of hazardous materials, as well as the development of efficient systems of collection, re-use and recycling. The ultimate aim is to close the loop of the product life cycle so that producers, who manufacturer the product in the first place and who are ultimately in charge of ddesigning the product, get their products back and assume full responsibility for life cycle costs. By ensuring this feedback to the producer and by making them financially responsible for end of life waste management, producers will have a financial incentive to ddesign their products with less hazardous and more recyclable materials. This change in the market economics – in effect the internalization of costs that are currently passed off to the general public – will encourage the ddesign of products for repair, upgrade, re-use, dismantling and safer recycling.
What the European Union has proposed as a solution for E-scrap:
- The draft WEEE Directive will phase-out the use of mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and two classes of brominated flame-retardants in electronic and electrical goods by the year 2004.
- It puts full financial responsibility on producers to set up collection, recycling and disposal systems.
- Between 70% to 90% by weight of all collected equipment must be recycled or re-used. In the case of computers and monitors, 70% recycling must be met.
- "Recycling" does not include incineration, so companies won’t be able to meet recycling goals by burning the waste.
- For disposal, incineration with energy recovery is allowed for the 10% to 30% of waste remaining. However, components containing the following substances must be removed from any end of life equipment which is destined for landfill, incineration or recovery: lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, PCBs, halogenated flame-retardants, radioactive substances, asbestos and beryllium.
- Member states shall encourage producers to integrate an increasing quantity of recycled material in new products. Originally the EU stipulated that by 2004 new equipment must contain at least five percent of recycled plastic content but this provision was recently dropped because of intense industry lobbying. This is a major weakening of the directive, since on the one hand it encourages recycling but then does not stipulate recycled content in new products. Instead the revised Directive ‘encourages’ member states to set recycled content in their procurement policies.
- Producers must ddesign equipment that includes labels for recyclers that identify plastic types and location of all dangerous substances.
- Member states must collect information from producers on a yearly basis about quantities of equipment put on the market, both by numbers of units and by weight, as well as on the market saturation in the respective product sectors. This information will be transmitted to the EU Commission by 2004 and every three years after that date.
- Producers can undertake the treatment operation in another country, but this should not lead to shipments of WEEE to non-EU countries where no or lower treatment standards than in the EU exist. Accordingly, producers shall deliver WEEE only to those establishments which comply with the treatment and recycling requirements set out in the proposal and producers shall verify compliance through adequate certifications.
It is envisaged that the extra costs of waste management will be reflected in 1% to 3% higher retail price on some items. However, the EU believes this is likely to diminish as economies of scale and innovation bring down the costs of separately collecting and treating WEEE. Also, the issue of who should pay is at the heart of Extended Producer Responsibility, since it is actually an extension of and mechanism to implement the "polluter pays" principle. Consumers who buy the product should pay the full price of that product’s waste management rather than the general taxpayer who may never purchase that particular product. Companies that learn how to produce products that are less hazardous and easier and less costly to recycle will develop a competitive advantage, since their recycling costs will be lower.
What has been the response of industry, member states and the US government?
Some industry representatives support harmonized legislation and the objectives of the WEEE proposal. However, many object to mandatory phase-outs of the most toxic materials, although most agree in principle with the need to minimize their use. Industry objects to the financial responsibility for collection of WEEE from private households but accepts a certain involvement in the recycling stage of their products.
The 15 Member States of the EU in general welcome the directive. No country favors a voluntary approach and there is general agreement about involving producers in the waste management phase of electrical and electronic equipment. Some countries favor the involvement of municipalities in the collection of WEEE, but maintain that the responsibility for treatment, recovery and disposal should be assigned to producers.
US government is lobbying heavily against the mandatory bans on e-toxics, e-waste and recycling quotas.
The US Trade Representative, the US Mission in Brussels and US trade associations such as the American Electronics Association (AEA) and the Electronics Industry Alliance (EIA) have expressed strong disagreements with the EU initiative.
In a September 9, 1998 letter from the American Electronics Association, the Electronics Industry Alliance and other trade groups, several high-tech trade associations sought assistance from the US State Department and the US Trade Representative to de-rail the proposal. They reiterated that the prohibition on the use of certain materials "that are essential to the functionality, safety and reliability of electronic and electrical products will impede the development of new technologies and products, increase costs, and restrict global trade in these products." The AEA also lobbied against the 5% mandatory recycled content in new products, and the financial responsibility of producers for collection and treatment.(44)
In a January 11, 1999 position paper that cited "Trade Concerns", the US Mission in Brussels has stated that the directive may constitute "unnecessary barriers to trade, particularly the ban on certain materials, burdensome take-back requirements for end of life equipment, and mandated ddesign standards." They further state that substitutes may be ‘as problematic or more problematic than the materials they are replacing’ and exemptions for certain uses ‘could lead to uncertainty and confusion in the marketplace.(45)
In response, to the lobbying position of the trade organizations and the US government's apparent support, a coalition of public advocacy groups, organized by the International Campaign for Responsible Technology based in Silicon Valley, California petitioned the European Union not to cave in to US lobbying.(See http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/gorelet.htm) At this year’s meeting of the President Council on Sustainable Development in April, they issued a press release supported by 100’s of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) from around the world, asserting that the US had no right to interfere in other countries’ environmental protection.
In response to this NGO position, the American Electronics Association wrote to Vice President Gore defending their position. They reiterated that they shared the goal of waste minimization and increased recycling but that the material bans and ddesign requirements went "...‘far beyond the establishment of environmental standards applicable to ‘waste’ of electrical and electronic equipment, and will hamper global trade of high-tech products, impede technological innovation and fail to benefit the environment." (46)To see the letter written by the AEA and the EIA to Vice-President Gore, visit the AEA Website Click on the public policy tab, then the international tab, then Europe.
In August, 1999 a legal opinion prepared for the AEA and EIA asserted again that the WEEE directive would violate several international trade rules and would be an invitation to further trade disputes. A previous assessment by the same law firm that the 5% recycled plastic content in new products posed a serious barrier to trade, was successful in getting the EU to drop this recommendation in the latest draft legislation. It now seems that the toxic material phase-outs are the next main focus in the US high-tech lobbyists.
The European Union has always maintained that the directive does not impose a barrier to trade and that European legal experts had studied the draft thoroughly. The EU also maintains that the phase-outs only apply when technically feasible and safer substitutes already exist.
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