Introduction

I think it is very important to remember the size of the problem we are faced with. According to the Commission, every year in the EU about 9.3 million tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment is sold. Most are large household appliances and IT and telecommunication equipment. As the market continues to grow, waste electrical and electronic equipment is the fastest growing waste stream. The total amount of WEEE produced per year is estimated to grow to 12.3 million tonnes by 2020. Greening electrical and electronic equipment is therefore of paramount importance because several hazardous substances can be released into the environment and damage human health, if the waste is not treated appropriately, especially in developing countries.

According to Article 174(2) of the Treaty, environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source. The waste hierarchy in the waste framework directive gives first priority to prevention - that means reducing the amount of harmful substances in materials and products.

The current RoHS Directive, adopted in 2003, sought to phase-out certain heavy metals and two groups of brominated flame retardants. According to the Commission, it has led to a reduction of more than 100,000 tonnes of these substances being disposed of and potentially released into the environment.

RoHS has been an important instrument in setting not just a European standard, but a global standard for manufacturers. It has not prevented the continued development of new products but the opposite - products were redesigned to be compliant with RoHS. And many companies are already going beyond that to phase out the use of all halogenated compounds.

Key issues

The recast is an important opportunity to move further forward.

It seems to me that there is agreement amongst the political groups to open the scope so that all electrical and electronic equipment are covered by the directive, and not just certain categories. This is the only way to have legal certainty. But this doesn't mean that all electrical and electronic equipment will have to be covered by the directive. The Commission is proposing certain exclusions from the scope, and I can accept those, subject to certain changes.

So today I will concentrate on two key issues:

-RoHS vs. REACH

-new restrictions

RoHS vs. REACH

There is a lobby to defer all future restrictions to REACH.

What this means in practice is delaying future restrictions for a long time, as REACH is just starting to develop, and will take more than a decade to fully apply. REACH is highly unlikely to tackle the key problem substances and materials we are faced with in WEEE, namely PVC and the main brominated flame retardant TBBPA. PVC is a polymer, and the main use of TBBPA is in the form of a co-polymer, and polymers are exempted from REACH registration and evaluation.

So REACH can't be a substitute for RoHS and it was never designed to. I hope that you will share my views on this. Both the Commission and the Council see RoHS as complementary to REACH. And this was echoed by the Executive Director of ECHA, when he came to the last meeting of our committee.

So I want us to keep and further develop a directive that was designed to address a specific problem, and not try and replace it with a general framework that is in its infancy and could only address the relevant problems too late, if at all.

New restrictions

The most controversial issue addressed in my report is new restrictions.

In 2003, Article 6 of RoHS explicitly obliged the Commission to examine the feasibility of replacing other hazardous substances and materials used in EEE and to present legislative proposals to extend the scope of Article 4, if appropriate.

The Commission is now proposing to delete this Article, and instead deal with new restrictions in a comitology procedure, that itself will be defined in comitology. I don't agree with replacing an existing procedure - co-decision - with an as yet undefined procedure, under which we will not have co-decision anymore. RoHS is a one-issue directive - it is specifically about restricting hazardous substances in EEE. If we delegated this to the Commission, we would give up our responsibility for the problem, and I don't think that is acceptable.

We need to refocus the directive onto what we should do now, and not get bogged down in a debate of how things may happen in the future. This is the opportunity given to us in the RoHS Directive - the review clause was to facilitate action, not prevent it.

So I suggest extending the prohibition to halogenated flame retardants and PVC, three and a half years after entry into force of the recast.

I hope colleagues have had the time not only to look at my draft report, but also at the explanatory statement, which I have dedicated almost exclusively to the key arguments for extending the restrictions. It is based on three main points:

• Evidence about the negative impact on the environment of halogenated flame retardants and PVC

• Action by global manufacturers and suppliers towards ending the use of halogenated flame retardants and PVC

• Evidence about substitutes being safer

Halogenated flame retardants

RoHS currently bans two groups of brominated flame retardants: PBBs and PBDEs. But there are many more brominated (and chlorinated) flame retardants which pose similar problems that have not yet been addressed by the Directive.

The Commission has in fact, (as required by Article 6 of the Directive), commissioned a study to assess substances not yet regulated under RoHS in the context of this recast. And this study highly recommended the phase-out of the group of organobromine and organochlorine substances in EEE. This is due to their potential to form dioxins and furans in case of uncontrolled fires (accidental fire) and upon co-combustion at lower temperatures or in not well functioning incinerators, rather than advanced disposal technologies.

But these technologies do not even exist in all EU Member States, let alone in developing countries. And where they exist, there is no requirement to actually use them for these waste streams. So the only way to address this problem is at source.

So my proposal is based on the recommendations of the very study commissioned by the Commission for this recast.

There is a second issue with halogenated flame retardants, which the Commission referred to itself in its proposal on RoHS back in 2000: halogenated flame retardants are a direct impediment to recycling of plastics in WEEE as a whole. In other words, by phasing out halogenated flame retardants, we enable increased recycling of plastics, in line with the goal of turning the EU into a "recycling society".

You may have been contacted by the producers of brominated flame retardants or other industry associations who argue that the Community risk assessment of the main brominated flame retardant TBBPA showed there was no risk. It is not as clear cut as that.

Firstly, this is not correct, as the risk assessment found a need to limit the use of TBBBPA as an additive flame retardant in ABS from compounding and conversion sites.

The relevant scientific committee of the European Commission did not agree with the partial conclusion "no need to limit the risks", as a crucial assessment is still pending.

And the Community risk assessment only looked at the direct health/environmental risks during the waste phase - it did not consider the impediment to plastics recycling due to TBBPA content. It assumed that all TBBPA containing waste goes to high temperature incinerators, which is not realistic. And while it admits that disposal by incineration, landfill, metal recycling and accidental fires can contribute to the formation of dioxins and furans, this is not further considered because they say it is not possible to quantify the amounts or assess the environmental significance of these products. This doesn't mean there is no risk.

So given the limitations of the risk assessment, the real concerns about dioxin formation due to TBBPA as shown in the study by the Öko-Institut and problems they create for recycling, I believe a phase out of brominated flame retardants, including TBBPA, to be a logical step to take.

PVC

Firstly, the Öko-Institut study commissioned by the Commission recommended a phase-out of PVC.

Secondly, the problems of PVC waste in general have been well-documented by the European Commission in 2000 in five studies. The findings were referred to explicitly in the Explanatory Memorandum of the proposal from 2000:

Significant quantities of PVC are contained in WEEE. There is substantial evidence supporting the view that PVC is not suitable for incineration, particularly in view of the quantity and the hazardous nature of the flue gas residues resulting from incineration. In addition, losses of plasticizers, especially phthalates, from the landfilling of PVC are widely recognised and can have potential adverse effects on the human health and the environment. It should also be noted that very little PVC waste, in particular in WEEE, is currently recycled.

Unfortunately, the evidence on PVC came too late in 2000 for inclusion in RoHS at the time. But we can act now.

Action by manufacturers

Many leading manufacturers in the electronics industry are way ahead of us in this. Major companies have taken unilateral action to convert to low-halogen products - products free of halogenated flame retardants and PVC.

In fact, there is a global environmental initiative by the international electronics manufacturing industry called iNEMI that is committed to this conversion. They held their third international symposium last month in Brussels. They are not discussing whether it should be done, but only how and by when.

This initiative also includes the supply chain (e.g. manufacturers of plastic components), and in turn manufacturers of EEE of other categories.

If the electronics industry with its highly complex products can convert to low-halogen within the next few years, then it should be no problem for the fast moving white goods sector to do the same. Electrolux already sell PVC-free fridges in Sweden.

Evidence about substitutes

The Commission argues that the available data does not allow us to decide on further restrictions of halogenated flame retardants, not that there is no information available - there is.

And there is another factor we should consider. There is no production of the flame retardant TBBPA in the EU. However, alternatives and halogen-free base materials are being produced in the EU, employing about 3000 people. And the producers of brominated flame retardants are also major producers of the alternatives. So this is not about phasing out an industry, it is about guiding them to producing safer substances.

The Commission does not question the availability of safer substitutes for PVC in its impact assessment, only the cost. However, if all the external costs of PVC were internalised, then its use wouldn't be so cheap.

Conclusion

In conclusion: prevention is better than cure. It is better to address environmental problems at the source. The original RoHS was mainly about lead and cadmium-free. We should take the opportunity, working together with industry, to make the next generation of electrical and electronic equipment free of PVC and halogenated flame retardants.

Diwedd/Ends.