Says CECED Director-General, Paolo Falcioni: “The reports adopted by the Plenary set the scene for the future negotiations with the Council and for the future of waste management in Europe.”
CECED welcomes the few safeguards introduced by the Parliament to ensure that extended producer responsibility obligations, set within the Waste Framework Directive, do not override the producer obligations already set in specific waste stream legislation. A one-size-fits-all approach is not feasible when it comes to waste legislation. Producers can only be financially responsible for aspects under their control or influence. The home appliance industry must be entitled to take an active role in fulfilling its legal obligations, to control compliance costs and to ensure that treatment is undertaken correctly. We therefore encourage the Council to further secure and strengthen such safeguards in the proposals.
This is complemented by an emphasis in the voted text amending the Waste Framework Directive on the roles and responsibilities of all actors handling waste in the Waste Framework Directive. In the WEEE Directive obligations for Member States, measures have been introduced to ensure that data from all actors collecting or treating WEEE are reported. We strongly encourage the Council to take on board the Parliament proposals related to this.
While we support the clarification of the preparing for re-use definition by the European Parliament, the introduction of a new article on re-use raises concerns for the home appliance industry. The definition of preparing for re-use, as confirmed today, does not create a mix between products and waste. Re-use is not a waste management operation. The second-hand market cannot be regulated, as it is not possible to monitor the actors active on these markets due to their diversity and their multiplicity. In this respect, CECED asks the Council to maintain the concept of recognised “preparing for re-use operators” as proposed by the Commission, confirmed also by the Parliament and asks for careful attention on the future discussions on reuse.
Paolo Falcioni concludes: “The Parliament has shared views on the topic. It is now up to the Council to ensure that the upcoming proposals will safeguard the Single Market by not introducing product design measures in waste legislation and allowing for subsidiarity, ensure coherency between the Waste Directives and other EU pieces of legislation, increase separate collection of waste and introduce mandatory compliance with EN standards on collection, logistics and treatment of WEEE in order to boost the market of secondary raw materials. CECED members have a longstanding experience with waste management and look forward to further collaborating with Member States, the Parliament and the Commission to secure a workable solution.”