Waste from electronic equipment initiatives

The German Environmental Ministry is reported to have attacked European proposals to ban substances such as specific flame retardants in forthcoming regulations for recycling electrical and electronic equipment. Initial proposals from the EU Commission on the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment, include a phaseout of PBDEs, despite preliminary findings under EU risk assessment that there is no need for risk reduction from the two types, decaBDE and octaBDE mainly used in such equipment. The Ministry is said to be concerned at the excessively prescriptive and restrictive system being proposed, and that substance restrictions should not be addressed in waste legislation, but should be based on life cycle risk assessments. 

Aside from the proposed EU legislation, a number of Member States took the initiative to improve the management of electronic waste in parallel with, or even before, the Commission s proposal. None of these planned or adopted provisions includes measures to restrict the use of lead in electronic equipment. These initiatives concerning the management of waste are discussed below. Nevertheless, Denmark has adopted a general ban on the import and marketing of... 

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