On February 3rd, 2011, the European Parliament voted the draft amendments to Directive 2002/96/EC. The provision on setting a WEEE collection target is among the most important provisions adopted. Thus, the decision made with a large majority – 580 votes for, 22 abstentions and 37 against – was to keep the collection target as an obligation for the member states and to calculate it according to the generated WEEE quantity.

This will be achieved by drafting a methodology that can be used to assess the quantities of discarded equipment in every state.

Some of the important effects are the fact that every member state will have a collection target that is both ambitious and achievable.

The approach will also help identify the channels used for WEEE management, including the identification of parallel flows, considering that the current estimations indicate that only 1/3 of the generated quantity is handed over to the producers’ systems.

The final adoption of this proposals also requires an extensive revision, in the near future, of the recently adopted Romanian legislation (GD 1037/2010) because it includes provisions that go against the ones voted by MEPs, namely the fact that the responsibility for WEEE management was entirely transferred to the producers and the collection targets should be established as a share of the quantity of new equipment placed on the market.

“It’s a progress an opportunity missed”, declared CECED representatives. “If politicians want to resolve the problems of WEEE, they must make sure that treatment requirements and reporting obligations cover all WEEE, not only the WEEE handled by producers”, opinionates Luigi Meli, CECED Director General. The loopholes in the present WEEE legislation are among the main reasons why so much WEEE slips through the collection system today.”

On the other hand, CECED welcomes that in comparison to the original Commission proposal, the European Parliament has opted for an improved collection target compared on the amount of WEEE that was generated. MEPs have also confirmed that it is for Member States to achieve this target – not producers.

This is the first vote in Parliament, a second vote will follow, on the “compromise” text being reviewed with the European Council.