Vivendi

Matthieu Wemaere, Associate in charge of the Brussels office – Huglo Lepage & Associates law firm
(SDR 2007-2008)

« The need for selective, controlled management of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) became clear in the mid-1990s as two things became evident: – first, the great increase in the amount of electrical and electronic equipment containing hazardous components or substances with relatively short life cycles being placed on the market (in 2005, 5% per year in the European Union, that is, three times more than any other waste stream, or approximately 50 million tons/year worldwide) and, – secondly, the absence of a selective process for collection and processing, resulting de facto in final disposal mixed with household waste (for 90% of WEEE).
To respond to these realities, the EU’s so-called WEEE Directive was adopted in 2002 to set specific objectives, in figures, for recycling and recovery, requiring each member State of the Union to establish a specific waste stream for management of WEEE to attain those objectives. All the Member States encountered difficulties in implementing the principle of producer responsibility.
The WEEE Directive sets specific objectives guaranteeing that a certain volume of waste will be processed within the European Union, but it also requires that waste exported from the EU be processed under equivalent conditions as regards protection of health and of the environment.
It is estimated that in 2005, 250 million personal computers became obsolete and that the great majority of them were not recycled, but exported to developing countries, in particular in Africa and Southeast Asia, without regard for the regulations relative to waste. This explains recent developments at the international level, such as the decision adopted by the contracting parties of the Basel Convention on cross-border movement of hazardous waste at their 8th Conference (COP 8, Nairobi, December 2006), which recommends an approach based on the life cycle of equipment and calls for stronger cooperation between States to prevent illegal trafficking in electronic waste. »