WEEE & RoHS Overview
by Capaccio Environmental Engineering, Inc.
This article will review WEEE & RoHS European
Directives, providing a high level overview, including definitions and
producer requirements. The European community created WEEE & RoHS
Directives to slow
down the increase of rising landfill material from electrical and
electronic equipment (WEEE) and to prevent the release of hazardous
substances from landfills into the environment through phasing out of
hazardous substances from materials (RoHS). Thus, the creation of WEEE &
RoHS European Directives regulatory requirements were born.
WEEE
Waste from Electrical and
Electronic Equipment (WEEE), is a European Union (EU) Directive aimed at producer responsibility to control the disposal and treatment of
electrical and electronic waste at end of life. The directive intent is
to reduce the impact of waste (electrical and electronic equipment) to the
environment during the product life cycle and assign financial
responsibility for the process. The WEEE Directive is defined through
individual European member state legislation, which will encourage and set
the criteria for financial responsibility and the recycling and recovery
of waste for electrical and electronic producers.
WEEE requires producers
of electrical and electronic equipment to meet the terms as defined by the
European member state laws, regulations, and administrative provisions
necessary to comply with the directive.
WEEE requires producers
to:
- Register with each applicable EU state
- Provide a financial guarantee (recycling
and disposal of materials is to be at no cost to those in the EU)
- Mark materials (WEEE symbol to be
included on material that enters an EU state on or after August 13th,
2005).
- Participate in the country’s treatment,
recovery, and recycling scheme or propose an alternate method
- Recycle all material entering the EU
- Meet annual recycling targets
RoHS
RoHS is the Restriction
Of the use of certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) in
electrical and electronic equipment directive. It is a European Union (EU)
Directive requiring producers to remove specified hazardous substances
from their electrical and electronic equipment. The RoHS directive
provides the structure for a unified vision from all European Union member
states to protect human health and ensure environmentally sound recovery
and disposal of waste from electrical and electronic equipment.
RoHS requires regulated
producers of electrical and electronic equipment to meet the EU member
states united law. The provision, specifically, RoHS requires producers to
phase-out certain hazardous substances by July 1, 2006.
Substances governed by
RoHS:
-
Mercury (Hg)
-
Lead (Pb)
-
Cadmium (Cd)
-
Hexavalent chromium (CrVI)
-
Brominated flame
retardants: polybrominated biphenyls, (PBB) or polybrominated diphenyl
ethers PBDE)
In Summary
WEEE and RoHS European
Directives are here to stay and in order for producers of electrical and
electronic equipment to continue receiving revenue streams from the European Union,
organizations will need to develop a strategy for implementing WEEE & RoHS
compliance within day to day operations. As we continue our drive towards
environmental compliance, we will also have to work through understanding
product applicability, registration requirements, strategic planning, and
integration into day to day operations for compliance in future E-blasts.
Stay tuned!
If
you are interested in learning more about the WEEE & RoHS European Union
Directives,
please contact Paula Esty at (508) 970-0033 ext. 128.
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