Europe's Anti-Pollution Laws begin to Bite

Written by Andrew Duff MEP and published in Royston Crow on Wed 10th Apr 2002

This week in Strasbourg the European Parliament will take another big step in establishing EU wide law on the environment. We are to vote on the draft Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE), a measure designed to ensure that EuropeÕs huge consumption of computer equipment is rendered sustainable. In short, the CommissionÕs proposal insists that a very high degree of the hardware we use shall be recycled.

It is a complex piece of legislation, which has to try to meet several competing requirements. Computer manufacturers are trying to avoid accepting all the cost of recycling, and want help from the tax-payer. Small firms, especially, will be clobbered if the legislation cannot be phased in over a lengthy period Ñ a vital consideration for the very many hi-tech companies in the East of England. Several national governments, whose approaches so far to the recycling problem vary from sophisticated tax breaks to nothing at all, are seeking exemptions that may threaten the development of a single market in these goods. Overall, the EU has to find a policy framework that is ecologically sound but not economically ruinous. Finding a balance between these competing interests is not easy.

The legislative climate is not improved in the UK as a result of the debacle over recycling cars and fridges. These are subject to earlier EU laws, but the British government, although agreeing to them in Brussels, has done next to nothing to carry them out.

End of life standards set at the EU level for toxic products fulfil long-standing European objectives. It is a pity that the UK lags behind its partners in taking them seriously. Despite having had since 1998 to prepare local councils for their new responsibilities, the government has only now offered £ 6 million to local authorities to help them reduce the refrigerator mountain Ñ only to discover that all the equipment needed to strip CFCs from old fridges has to be imported from Germany. The same lack of preparation plagues the recycling of cars.

Hardly surprising, then, that the Commission is taking the UK to court for its failure to comply with European Union laws on hazardous waste. MEPs are right to continue to press for better quality legislation and higher standards of compliance.