The end goal is to promote recycling and foster resource efficiency

Aug 14, 2012 12:38 GMT  ·  By

Just yesterday, the EU made it public news that, thanks to new e-waste management policies, most of the electrical and electronic equipment that are no longer of any use to their owners will enter a carefully planned recycling program. 

The end goal is that of collecting the gold, silver, copper and rare metals they contain and therefore help promote resource efficiency.

According to this new directive, the year 2016 will bring about a collection target for e-waste of up to 45% of overall sales in terms of electronic equipment, whereas the year 2019 will see to the meeting of a target of 65%.

It is now expected that within the following moths (by the 14th of February at the latest, to be more precise), the states part of the EU will revise their present legislations concerning WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment), so as to make sure that their ways of dealing with e-waste abide by new EU standards.

EU's official website quotes Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik, who made a case of how, “In these times of economic turmoil and rising prices for raw materials, resource efficiency is where environmental benefits and innovative growth opportunities come together.”

Furthermore, “We now need to open new collection channels for electronic waste and improve the effectiveness of existing ones. I encourage the Member States to meet these new targets before the formal deadline.”

Apparently, the need to implement stricter e-waste management policies also stems from the fact that, throughout the past years, illegal WEEE shipments have become quite a problem, something which leaves high officials with no other choice than to push for a more careful monitoring of these soon-to-be-very-limited resources.

Given the fact that today's human society tends to produce ever-increasing amounts of e-waste, it comes as good news that efforts are made to keep a close eye on what happens to our electrical and electronic equipment once we give up on using them.