Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-15-Speech-2-039"
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"en.20010515.3.2-039"2
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"Mr President the two proposals we are now discussing are an important step in reducing the quantities of waste from electronic products. Instead of household equipment and computer parts ending up being dumped, as often happens at present, we are laying the foundations for all EU Member States being able to collect them separately and recycle them.
The basic idea of the recycling proposal is that the polluter must pay. It is not good enough that the cost of collecting and recycling products should not be a burden upon the consumer. The cost must be a part of the product’s overall cost and price. It is therefore important that the collection and recycling cost should be an integral part of the product’s price and not a separate, visible charge. Only when the cost is integrated is the actual environmental cost integrated into the price.
It is also important that every company should have to pay the costs of its products. Such a system does not prevent practical cooperation in connection with collection and recycling. Individual financial responsibility on the part of companies is both fairer and more efficient than collective financial responsibility. An individual system for new waste benefits those manufacturers that use the best materials and construct those products that are simplest to recycle. This will favour more environmentally-friendly products and provide a major impetus for product development.
The rapporteur has made efforts to try at an early stage to get the various political groups to compromise on quite a few important areas. That is something we really appreciate, and we also believe that, as the work continues, it puts Parliament in a stronger position in relation to the Council of Ministers. We obviously support the objectives of an increase in both the proportion of collected products and the proportion of the collected products which it will be possible to recycle.
When it comes to the second proposal for a directive, concerning a restriction upon the use of hazardous substances in electronic equipment, we believe that the committee’s proposals could have gone further. That applies especially to the possibility of banning various flame retardants. Recently, there have been quite a few alarming reports about the way in which these substances accumulate and about the dangerous effects on health to which they can give rise.
We also think that it needs to be possible right now for individual countries to make tougher demands upon this type of product. The Commission has recently objected to the fact that the Swedish Government wanted to impose tougher environmental requirements regarding hazardous substances in connection with the purchase of 400 000 computers. We think it is completely unacceptable that the Commission and the EU’s purchasing regulations should at present, in this way, be preventing countries from imposing tougher environmental requirements and, by so doing, supporting product development in this area."@en1
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