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

many are expected to fall short of the 2006 and 2015 targets. 516 A further restriction
to measuring recycling rates is that many Member States have not yet implemented
reliable reporting systems to allow correct measurement of how much of a vehicle is
recycled or reused. Thus at the moment there are no reliable indicators to measure
the performance of the ELV policies, but this will change as reporting increasing.
The cost of treating ELVs is closely linked to the price of recycled metals, because a
large proportion of the recycled material from ELVs will be ferrous or non-ferrous
metal, both of which are relatively easy to separate for reprocessing.
The recent collapse in the price of recycled metals is a situation that the ELV policies
were implemented to deal with. 517 In many European countries, if the costs of
recovery exceed the revenue generated from the sale of recyclates the differential is
funded by the vehicle producers, and in Japan, Sweden, and the Netherlands by the
levy on all new vehicle registrations. Consequently, the cost to the final owner of
discarding the vehicle remains zero and illegal dumping is avoided. If the value of
recovered materials remains low, producers will need to provides additional funds to
support the scheme, and this is likely to increase the cost of vehicles, at the margin.
Hence, consumers will likely pay some additional amount for the increased cost of
recycling ELVs.
GHK, and Bio Intelligence Service (2006) also concluded that the enforcement of
standards at ATFs increases the quality of depollution and quantity of recyclable
materials recovered from the vehicle body. Consequently this is a key element to
accruing the potential environmental benefits aimed for following the implementation
of the Directive. Therefore, some measure of poor performing states can be made in
relation to how many treatment facilities are operating illegally. For example, the
following list shows some indicative figures for the proportion of dismantling facilities
that operate illegally in several EU Member States:
442
� France – 40%
� Hungary – 80%
� Poland – 90%
23.6 Implementation Costs
There will be costs involved with preliminary compliance and also with annual charges
for the administration of the policy.
For example, in England the preliminary compliance cost assessment estimated the
cost of meeting the Directive as £360 to £520 million. This includes a cost to
516 M. Fergusson and IEEP (2006) End of Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive: An assessment of the current
state of implementation by member states, Report for The European Parliament: Policy Department
Economic and Scientific Policy,
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/comparl/envi/pdf/externalexpertise/end_of_life_vehicles.pdf
517 London Metal Exchange (2009) Steel & Non-Ferrous Metals Prices, Accessed 17 th January 2009,
http://www.lme.co.uk/home.asp
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