France has achieved a new record for recycling electrical goods, according to an environmental watchdog.
Eco-systèmes, which monitors and organises the collection and recycling of electrical and electronic equipment under the EU’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, says 517,000 tonnes of electrical waste in 2016 was collected for recycling across France. This is an increase of 12.3 per cent on the previous year, and is the equivalent of 10kg of electrical goods per person. Eco-systèmes says that France has become the first major European country to reach this threshold.
More than 3.1million waste electrical devices have already been collected in 2017, and Eco-systèmes states that in 10 years the organisation has collected and recycled 318 million unwanted electrical appliances.
Following the European Union’s formal adoption of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Recast Directive in 2014, tougher WEEE collection targets were set for member states. From 2016, the collection target was set at 45 per cent of the average annual weight of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) that is placed on the market for the three preceding years. Annual collection targets are then set to rise further in 2019, increasing to a rate of 65 per cent of the average annual weight of EEE placed on the market in the three preceding years. To achieve this target, member states must hit collection targets of 14 kg of devices per inhabitant by 2019.
In the UK, a total of 387,774 tonnes of all categories of household WEEE were collected for recycling between January and September 2015, which means the UK is on course to meet its target to collect 506,878 tonnes of WEEE throughout the year.
If your business manufactures, imports or rebrands electrical or electronic goods in the UK then you must comply with the UK Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations. Our approved WEEE compliance scheme helps businesses to meet the regulations, with unrivalled member support, cost-effective packages and a variety of membership categories for all producers of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE).
