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

Throughout Europe, the costs of implementing WEEE policies varies widely,
depending on a large number of factors as follows: 450
396
1. Some MS already had legislation in place concerning WEEE prior to the
directive, therefore infrastructures and systems were already actively in place,
reducing set-up costs to comply with the directive (e.g. Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Sweden and Luxembourg). It should be noted that, according to the
UNU report, estimations for 2007 show costs to be decreasing over time, with
anything up to a 27 % reduction in total costs for specific categories; 450
2. The collection infrastructure currently in place e.g. the number of collection
points that require servicing, the minimum amounts of WEEE to be collected,
the geographical and traffic situation for transport costs, the number of staff at
each collection point;
3. Cost of permits for collection and treatment of WEEE;
4. Treatment standards required by the MS;
5. Enforcement of legislation on the export of WEEE to other countries i.e. how
much WEEE ends up as ‘hidden flow’;
6. Disposal costs e.g. landfill taxes, incineration etc;
7. Possible profits for recovery of materials;
8. Financial guarantee costs;
9. Education/ awareness raising costs;
10. Research and development costs;
11. Reporting requirements; and
12. The market situation: where a monopolistic system exists (as was the
situation in Sweden until recently) there is less competition, resulting in more
costly products for the consumer.
Table 20-3 shows a breakdown of the range of total costs associated with the various
categories of WEEE across the MS and Table 20-4 shows the costs for the longer
running compliance schemes. These tables illustrate the point that where systems
have been in place for longer, the range of costs and the average cost tends to
decline.
450 United Nations University (2007) 2008 Review of Directive 2002/96 on Waste Electrical and
Electronic Equipment (WEEE), Final Report produced for the European Commission.
29/09/09