International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

There are, at present, certain specifics within the Act that require further decisions
before it can become fully effective within South Korea. These decisions include
which hazardous substances to restrict, the mandatory recycling rates that will be set
for the various types of EEE (though the Act has already specified that these rates will
be based on how much WEEE is separately collected compared to the yearly amount
of EEE that is produced, as well as past performance records of recycling), and
acceptable recycling methods and standards.
20.2.1.6 Sweden
In Sweden, until recently El-Kretsen has been the single national collective system for
compliance with WEEE producer responsibility requirements. The collection system
from householders has achieved the highest rate of collection reported in the EU,
reaching 15.8 kg per capita per year in 2006. Collection is via WEEE containers at
municipal collection sites, with municipalities providing storage space to accept WEEE
from households. The provision and collection of these containers is financed by
producers. There are currently over 1,000 collection sites in Sweden, with 700
available for household and more than 300 available for non-household WEEE. El-
Kretsen’s nationwide collection and recycling system currently also covers 5 % of EEE
retailers and business consumers.
The success of this collection system has been attributed to the level of cooperation
between the partners, municipalities and contractors, plus the willingness of the
public to participate in the separate collection. The system has also simplified how
historical WEEE collection is financed, because there has been only one compliance
scheme, removing the need to verify that each scheme is handling the required
amount of historical WEEE.
A new compliance solution is, however, currently emerging on the Swedish market
that will mostly likely use an existing network of 2-3 large retailers for its collection
system. In addressing the need for greater competition within the WEEE market in
Sweden, the outcome should be lower costs of compliance, and hence, at the margin,
lower product prices. 439 However, this additional compliance solution will add
complexity to the system – with the probable need for a clearing house in order to
apportion historical WEEE collection.
Distributors in Sweden are not obligated to offer WEEE take-back on a 1:1 basis due
to the relatively strong performance of the municipal collection systems.
Financial guarantees for the producer responsibility system can be offered via
recycling insurance, blocked bank accounts, an annual bank guarantee or via
membership in collective finance systems. In Sweden, recycling insurances in
particular are being used as a way of influencing product design. Whereas in
countries such as Germany where the recycling insurance is only calculated according
to the amount of WEEE production, in Sweden the insurance premiums are being
adjusted to reflect a combination of the following: the projected future cost to recycle
439 R. Veit (2005) How do WEEE get it right?, EMSNow, available at
http://www.emsnow.com/npps/story.cfm?id=15184
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