The paper was presented at the Polish Logistics Congress Logistics 2008 – “New challenges – new solutions”, Poznań, May 7 – 9, 2008.
1. European Union and national regulations concerning the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment
Directive 2002/96/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 January 2003 on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE Directive) imposes a number of obligations on Member States related to the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). The WEEE Directive entered into force on 13 February 2003, while most of the implementing regulations began to apply from 13 August 2005.
Member States were obliged to encourage the design and production of electrical and electronic equipment in a way that takes into account and facilitates its dismantling and recovery, in particular the reuse and recycling of WEEE and its components and materials (Art. 4). Furthermore, Member States were obliged to adopt appropriate measures to limit the disposal of WEEE as unsorted municipal waste and to achieve a high level of separate collection of WEEE (Art. 5). According to the directive, Member States are obliged to achieve a rate of separate collection of WEEE from private households of at least four kilograms per inhabitant per year.
For most Member States, the deadline for achieving the required rate expired on 31 December 2006; for Poland, the final deadline for achieving the required rate was postponed to 31 December 2008. Assuming that the population of Poland is 38 million, Poland will be obliged to collect approximately 152,000 tons of waste equipment from households.
The first article of the directive contains the justification for the purpose of introducing the regulations. According to the article, the quantity of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) should be reduced, and the reuse, recycling, and other forms of recovery of WEEE should be promoted in order to reduce the amount of waste. Furthermore, efforts should be made to improve the environmental performance of all operators involved in the life cycle of electrical and electronic equipment (producers, distributors, and consumers, and operators directly involved in the treatment of waste electrical and electronic equipment).
The WEEE Directive is legally binding only within the Member States and sets out the objectives to be achieved, while leaving Member States the freedom to decide how to implement the provisions into their local legal system. The directive is addressed directly to the Member States and does not confer rights or impose obligations directly on citizens or business entities of individual Member States. The rights and obligations imposed on citizens and business entities of individual Member States result solely and exclusively from the regulations to which the authorities of individual states have given legal force.
In Polish legislation, the transposition of the WEEE Directive is the Act of 29 July 2005 on waste electrical and electronic equipment. The Act covers, among others, entrepreneurs introducing electrical and electronic equipment, entrepreneurs running WEEE collection points, entrepreneurs running treatment plants, entrepreneurs conducting business in the field of recycling and recovery processes other than recycling, and recovery organizations. To a much lesser extent, the Act covers equipment users and retail and wholesale sellers of electrical and electronic equipment.
The provisions of the Act clearly define the obligations of entrepreneurs involved in the WEEE management process. Individual articles of the Act describe general requirements regarding technical infrastructure, reporting, and performance results. Detailed information regarding reporting, form templates, and fee rates have been included in the relevant regulations of the Minister of the Environment.
The Act entered into force on 21 October 2005, while most of the implementing regulations entered into force on 1 July 2006. The remaining provisions enter into force with some delay, providing entrepreneurs with transition periods to allow them to adapt to the new regulations. The Act will fully enter into force on 1 January 2009, when the last of the articles becomes effective.
The full article in PDF format.