In an interview for CE-Markt titled A Holistic View of the Circular Economy, Alexander Goldberg, Executive Director of the WEEE Register Foundation, recently commented on whether collection rates for waste electrical and electronic equipment are a useful tool.
Alexander Goldberg stated, “The collection rate targets set by Directive 2012/19/EU are unrealistic and unsuitable for practical application. The EU currently stipulates that 65% of the electrical equipment placed on the market on average over the past three years must be collected as waste. Surprisingly, the EU has not established uniform procedures for measuring the quantities placed on the market and collected, or for calculating the rates. Rather, member states have considerable leeway here and can, for example, estimate both placed-on-the-market and collected quantities, interpret the scope more narrowly and exclude more products, apply different product weighting methods, fail to pursue free-riders, etc. The three-year period is also unsuitable for properly and sufficiently accounting for the volumes of durable products, such as refrigerators and PV modules.”
These factors significantly influence the underlying quantities and thus the level of the collection rate. In practice, this means that collection volumes and rates are hardly comparable across Member States and do not allow for reliable conclusions about the actual performance of the circular economy. The rate is still used to support collective deposit systems in Germany, but there is no clear explanation of how or where the estimated extra 1.2 million tonnes per year will be coming from. Furthermore, the calculation of the rate is so complex that it is hardly suitable for consumer communication. According to Alexander Goldberg, a simple, transparent target metric, such as kilograms per capita, would be more effective.
This argument is noteworthy in that VERE has been criticising the problem of collection rates for years.
VERE e.V. is in contact with the relevant authorities and keeps its members informed about ongoing developments via the “VERE Insider”.
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