House of Commons - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Fourth Report

2 The Directives

4. Waste and environmental legislation such as the ELV Directive and the WEEE Directive is increasingly decided upon at European Union level following negotiations involving national Governments. European environmental legislation is typically underpinned by the 'polluter pays' principle, which in basic terms requires those responsible for polluting the environment to pay the cost of cleaning it up, or of preventing pollution in the first place. The intention is to encourage waste prevention, to support greater recycling and re-use, and to improve the monitoring of final disposal of materials at the end of their life. The End of Life Vehicles Directive and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directives follow these principles.

End of Life Vehicles Directive

5. The ELV Directive came into force on 21 October 2000.[7] The deadline set for its transposition into national law was 21 April 2002, a date which was not met by any EU Member State.[8] The objective of the Directive is to make vehicle dismantling and recycling more 'environmentally friendly', by setting targets for the re-use, recycling and recovery of vehicles and their component parts and, in tandem, by encouraging manufacturers to ensure that their vehicles are as 'recyclable' as possible. Each year 8 or 9 million tonnes of end of life vehicle waste is produced in Europe; the aim of the Directive is to minimise the proportion of that total which is disposed of in landfill or by incineration.[9]

6. The ELV Directive places a number of requirements on vehicle manufacturers. They are:

to reduce the use of hazardous substances in the design of vehicles;
to design and produce vehicles that facilitate the dismantling, reuse, recovery and recycling of ELVs; and
to increase the use of recycled materials in vehicle manufacture, ensuring that after 1 July 2003 components marketed do not contain hazardous substances.

7. The Directive also requires that Member States establish collection and disposal systems for ELVs such that disposal and processing can only be carried out at authorised facilities. Those facilities will need to obtain a permit to comply with tightened environmental standards. A 'certificate of destruction' will only be issued if a vehicle is disposed of in an 'environmentally sound' manner. Finally, the Government have decided that until 2007 it will be the responsibility of the last known owner to dispose of the vehicle; afterwards it becomes the responsibility of the producer.

Transposition

8. The Government has issued a number of consultation documents about the way in which it intends to transpose the ELV Directive into domestic law. In March 2003 Defra announced that it was seeking views on Article 6 and Annex I of the Directive, which relate to the treatment of end of life vehicles, and in particular the permitting of facilities which will be authorised to dispose of them. At the same time the Department of Trade and Industry issued a document about Articles 4, 5 and 8, and Annex II of the Directive, which deal with the prevention of waste, collection of end of life vehicles, and coding advice and dismantling information - in other words, the requirements relating to producer responsibility - and Article 9, which relates to the provision of information to the Commission about the implementation of the Directive.

9. Following these consultations, on 3 November 2003 the End-of-Life Vehicles Regulations 2003 came into force.[10] They put in place the foundations of the legal structure required to implement the Directive. However, agreement is still to be reached about the details of how producers will pay for the disposal of vehicles, amongst other matters.[11] The Department of Trade and Industry says that it will issue a further consultation on such matters "in due course".[12]

Table 1: Timetable of the ELV Directive

Date
2000	October: End of Life Vehicles Directive comes into force
2001
2002	April: Deadline for domestic transposition (not met by the UK)
2003	March: Consultation documents issued by both Defra and the DTi November: End-of-Life Vehicles Regulations 2003 come into force
2004	End January: permits issued by Environment Agency to authorised treatment facilities
2005
2006	First of ELV recovery targets to be achieved
2007	Producer responsibility and free takeback scheme begins

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive

10. The WEEE Directive came into force on 13 February 2003.[13] It is due to be transposed into national law by 13 August 2004. The Directive deals with waste from electrical and electronic equipment. The list of items it covers includes large and small household appliances, such as fridges, televisions, toasters and hairdryers, IT, communications and lighting equipment, toys, medical equipment and vending machines.

11. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive has grown out of the Restriction on the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (ROHS) Directive, agreed in 1995.[14] Like the ELV Directive its central objective is to ensure that hazardous substances do not enter the environment, and to promote re-use, recycling and other forms of recovery of electrical and electronic waste. Like the ELV Directive the WEEE Directive places requirements both on Member States and on producers. The most important of these are:

Member States are required to set up a collection system by 13 August 2005, under which private households can return electrical and electronic waste free of charge. Distributors supplying a new product must offer to take back waste equipment from private households. Producers must provide for the collection of waste other than from private households;
producers are required to set up waste treatment systems (which comply with defined standards). They must set up systems for recovering WEEE. Five years after the Directive comes into force (in 2008) they must finance the collection, treatment, recovery and 'environmentally sound' disposal of WEEE from private households;
by 31 December 2006 a minimum of 4kg of WEEE per inhabitant per year must be collected separately from other waste; and
by 31 December 2006 the rate of recovery by average weight must be 80% for large household appliances; 60% for small household appliances, consumer equipment, electrical and electronic tools and toys; and 75% for IT and telecommunication equipment and waste containing cathode ray tubes. The rate of component material and substance re-use and recycling for gas discharge lamps must be 80%; 75% for large household appliances; 70% for small household appliances; and 65% for IT and telecommunication equipment. New targets will be established for the years after 2008.

Transposition

12. Unlike in the case of the ELV Directive, the Government appears confident that it will meet the deadline of 13 August 2004 for transposition of the WEEE Directive into domestic law.. It has already issued two consultation documents. The first, issued in Spring 2003, sought initial views on how the Directive should be implemented. The second, issued in November 2003, set out Government proposals and invited comments by March 2004. A final consultation will take place from "late Spring 2004" on draft implementing Regulations for the Directive.[15]

Table 2: Timetable of the WEEE Directive

Date
2003	January: ROHS Directive comes into force February: WEEE Directive comes into force
2004	March: End of consultation period on implementation of the WEEE and ROHS Directives August: Deadline for domestic transposition of the two Directives
2005	August: WEEE collection system operational
2006	December: First WEEE targets to be met
2007
2008	New recovery, re-use and recycling targets to be established.