Combatting waste crime

With respect to WEEE from private households, producers provide at least for the financing of the collection, treatment, recovery and environmentally sound disposal of such waste provided that it has been deposited at designated collection facilities, whether municipal or set up by producers. For any such product that has been placed on the market after 13 August 2005, each producer shall be responsible for financing this operation. A producer may do so individually or by joining a collective scheme, it being understood that, in either case, a producer must provide a guarantee when placing a product on the market showing that the management of such a product at the end of its life will be financed when the time comes (Article 12(3)). The costs of WEEE from products placed on the market on or before 13 August 2005, known as “historic waste”, are borne by one or several management systems to which all producers existing on the market when the respective costs occur contribute proportionally “e.g. in proportion to their respective share of the market by type of equipment” (Article 12(4)), but competitiveness problems may result from such a less than optimal arrangement. Whenever EEEs are transferred for placing on the market outside the territory of the Member State where they were first introduced, the producer is reimbursed for its contributions which become redundant (Article 12(5)).

As to WEEE from users other than private households, the producer is likewise in principle liable for costs, but again, with certain nuances for “historical waste.” For historical waste being replaced by new equivalent products or by new products fulfilling the same function, the financing shall be provided by the producers of those new products although the Member States may provide that users contribute to this financing. In the case of other historical waste, financing is ensured by the users, unless there is an agreement to the contrary between the producer and the user (Article 13).

Lastly, in view of the important problems caused by free-riders, the costs of appropriate analyses and inspections of used EEEs suspected to be WEEE “may be charged” to the producers, to third parties acting on their behalf or to other persons arranging for the shipment of used EEEs suspected to be WEEE (Article 23(3)).

The last decade the problems relating to WEEEs is constantly aggravating. WEEE is regarded as hazardous waste and therefore prohibited from export to non-OECD countries for treatment/recovery. A study conducted for the Interpol Pollution Crime Working Group (Interpol, 2009) identified the huge potential for informal networks of criminals to profit from the illegal export of electrical waste to developing countries. Moreover, already in a study of IMPEL on Transfrontier Shipment of Electronic Waste in 2009, WEEE has been characterized as ‘toxic time bomb’ causing enormous recycling and disposal problems, whereas some years later a relevant EEA report suggests that significant amounts of WEEE are not being collected and treated according to EU standards (EEA, 2012b). Instead, it is being exported to non-OECD countries as second-hand goods. The report suggested that 28% of businesses (collectors and exporters) were exporting WEEE illegally.