The European parliament environmental committee has voted in favour of the weee recycling target eventually rising to 85%.

The rise would be staged over several years with a target of 45% of material to be collected by 2016 and 65% by 2020. However there is still some disagreement between the parliament and council over how the target should be calculated.

The committee met in Brussels last week and voted unanimously to endorse plans for the target to be raised. A number of other new proposals were also supported.
These included:

Consumers being able to hand in “very small” WEEE to all but the smallest electrical shops for free;

Setting higher recovery and recycling targets for individual items of WEEE – between 70-85% recovery goals and 50-75% recycling;

Setting a new separate target for 5% of WEEE to be reused;

Ensuring producers and consumers should bear the costs of e-waste, not the general taxpayer;

Doing more to cut out the “unnecessary administrative burdens and costs faced by companies”;

Tackling illegal WEEE exports to the developing world by shifting the burden of proof to exporters to prove that electrical equipment being exported to non-OECD countries is fit for reuse and not just waste.

A full plenary session of the European Parliament is now scheduled to vote on the plans in January 2012.