Mobile applications and electronic devices have been an integral part of our day-to-day lives. Due to technological advancements along with swift product obsolescence, there has been a rapid growth in the waste of electrical and electronic equipment, or WEEE. The European Union has issued directives in order to curb the negative health and environmental impacts of improving the material recovery of useful substances from WEEE. The WEEE compliance directive and initiatives along with its implementation have expanded to national legislative bodies in Norway, Finland, and Sweden which describes how the WEEE recovery infrastructures have been built across the Nordic Countries. The Nordic WEEE management is basically assessed on the basis of efficient use of resources and well as the inculcation of best practices. The WEEE management systems established across Nordic countries gain multiple advantages since the WEEE collection rates have increased majorly over the years.
Objectives for Sustainability
The WEEE directive aims at contributing the maximum for sustainable productivity and consumption. The creation of WEEE as a first priority was done for promoting efficiency in resource usage. It is important to retrieve secondary raw materials via re-use, and recycling materials in order to improve environmental conditions. European countries have taken the initiative of fighting illegal waste exports in order to avoid disguised illegal shipments of WEEE products. European manufacturers have taken this step in order to bring about healthy practices and eventually curb the problem of the WEEE product life cycle.
Waste Disposal
For manufacturers, distributors, and sellers of electronic equipment and electricals like fridges, and mobile phones, Europe and its national laws have imposed contributions from dealers for ensuring proper disposal of treated property. This basically indicates that registrations with responsible national authorities across each country where distribution and selling channels exist are mandatory.
Waste Reporting
It is also important to file reports on a regular basis about the number of goods sold, organization and financing of the collections, recycling process, and take-back services. Customers must be able to return electronic waste without additional costs in order to promote such healthy practices. Manufacturers must comply with the restrictions imposed in order to handle hazardous substances.
Registration with National WEEE Authorities
One must register his company with the authorities who are in charge of the WEEE management across each European country where such products are made and sold. Contact details of national registers of the WEEE can be found on www.europa.eu .
Report Submission
Once selling of WEEE labeled products are started across the European market, one must submit regular reports to the national authorities explaining the types of equipment manufactured each day, distribution channels and number of goods sold at what prices and margins. The formats for the registration and reporting processes can be obtained from the national registers.
Waste Management
One must positively contribute to ensure proper disposal of equipment that are manufactured, distributed across the countries and sold to consumers. Once a consumer discards the product, the manufacturers must have a proper disposal method in mind in order to help the environment. One can either choose to join a WEEE collective compliance scheme that is already existing or might decide to set up his own scheme which would help the initiative.
Conclusion
The EU commission had been evaluating the WEEE directive in 2022 to assess whether the purpose and result are hand in hand or not. It also explored possibilities to simplify the rules and also decide whether a thorough review is necessary. Thus, an open public consultation to inculcate ideas into the directive will be done during the first quarter of 2023 to benefit the maximum out of it.
