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We need a
level playground
European Recycling Platform knows of the problems of WEEE
Europe consists of 27 states. And each of them has its
own national version of the WEEE-Directive. The European
Recycling Platform (ERP) wants to make chances and difficulties for all Euroepan equal in all states.
RECYCLNG m@gazine: The ERP was founded in 2002 to
coordinate the transposition of the WEEE-Directive into
national law. However, there are 27 different translations of WEEE in each member state. Do you think this
European law was a success?
Umberto Raiteri: Generally speaking, I think the WEEE Directive is a success, since it allowed all member states to raise
the public awareness of WEEE and to promote a more conscious behaviour by the citizens. The Directive was implemented in so many different ways that it led to different
levels of success in different countries: this is reflected in
the varying return rates that have been achieved in different countries. Moreover, the take-back costs that producers
have to bear are dramatically different country-by-country.
This is largely due to the different degree of development of
public infrastructure, the different role played by the retailers
and the different degree of competition that the recycling
markets have faced. In conclusion, I would say that there
is much room for improvement for the WEEE Directive. The
Commission has a great opportunity now with the upcoming revision to address the existing weaknesses and to turn
them into opportunities.

unnecessary burden on producers around Europe. The WEEE

market is still largely local, with a tendency to protect existing long-term relationships among the main stakeholders,
making the market dynamic much slower than other sectors.
This hinders the positive competition drive which should
bring innovation, efficiencies and overall optimisation of the
waste pipeline. The solution would be the removal of any
proximity principle and local restrictions for waste transportation, allowing the market to follow its usual and natural
patterns. With regards to national coordination, we face realities with extreme differences between them: we have a very
coordinated approach in Germany, Italy, Ireland and Austria,
where the interaction and the efficiency of the national
waste system allows substantial order and control, ensuring a high level of service to municipalities and retailers.
On the other side of the spectrum we have the UK, France
and Spain, where there is no coordination and where waste
hunting done by the local players is beneficial to the local
WEEE system. Finally, we would support the creation of a set
of real European standard rules to be used by all producers
in registering, reporting and fulfilling their WEEE obligations
across Europe. Alignment among the national WEEE registries would be an excellent starting point.

In each EU-member state there are different quotas of

material taken back. Nearly every nation has its own way
of raising the quotas. Which way would you advise the
From your point of view, which problems are inherent in states to take?
First, all countries should clearly ban any dubious or illeWEEE? How can we/the governments solve them?
The main problems are the lack of a real European waste gal waste treatment in order to limit and ultimately stop
market, the lack of national coordination for collection allo- any recycling activity that in some cases contributes
cation and the different local requirements. This puts an to increasing the official figures but does not help reduce

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Editorial

Umberto Raiteri,
CEO of ERP

the environmental impact of WEEE. Secondly, I would urge

the local authorities to increase and reinforce the impact of
public awareness campaigns: there is still a large share of
the population that doesnt know what they can (and must)
do with their electrical waste. On the contrary, they still throw
everything in the bin, despite paying hefty visible fees at the
moment of purchase. My opinion is that the producers are
making huge efforts in this direction. This effort is running
in parallel to extensive campaigns with free take-back that
is supported by a large portion of retailers who are running
these types of events at their stores.
If you compare the 27 national laws to each other, which
one is the best? Which one is the worst?
The case of Spain must be highlighted, for the reason that if
you want to operate as a national compliance scheme, you
need to apply and receive 19 different permits each with
its own specificities. If the system would deliver an overall
benefit I would not point it out, but since there are still five
regions that have not issued a permit to any compliance
scheme and this almost three years after the implementation of the Directive I believe that there are better ways to
go about this.
On the positive side, I would highlight Austria and Ireland for
their punctual (even with some imperfections) implementation of the famous 13 August 2005 deadline, with a final
mention to Germany for their big effort to ensure a coordinated approach to such a large market.

Looking into the future, which challenges do you think

will affect the E-Scrap-Recyclers?
The main challenge would be to re-balance the installed
capacity and the investments needed to cope with a different stream balance than in the past. The traditional overcapacity in fridge recycling will need to be balanced by an
increase in demand for flat screens (LCD, Plasma), IT equipment and large appliances, alongside special waste like
lamps and medical devices. Moreover, the waste stream
balance will continue to change in the future, with the CRT
volumes bound to decrease in a few years in favour of larger,
but lighter flat screens. Another challenge could come from
the future price trend of metal and steel material: if the global demand of steel, lead, copper, etc. stabilises or reduces,
it might be that the valuable metal recycling streams will
lose value and therefore will have a tougher challenge to
justify investments for innovation and efficiency.
How is ERP going to equalise the national laws or the
requirements on the companies and recyclers?
We have expressed very clearly our position several times to all
the stakeholders and decision-makers in Europe: only a real
coordinated European deployment of the WEEE Directive will
give producers a chance to sustain recycling costs at an acceptable level. If were given a level playground, ERP is ready to use
all the synergies and efficiencies available to a pan-European
WEEE management system in order to equalise the take-back
costs across Europe as much as possible. This would allow
producers to better plan and account for the take-back costs
in their current and future budgets, and will allow recyclers to
play a fair game and to ensure sustainable and environmentally
sound treatment of the growing amount of WEEE in Europe. v

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