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Indicator Specification
Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is currently considered to be one of the fastest-growing waste streams. WEEE contains a number of hazardous substances and at the same time valuable materials. The revised EU WEEE Directive (2012/19/EU) sets out measures to reduce generation of WEEE, and enhance collection, reuse, recycling and recovery, applying producer responsibility as key implementing mechanism. The indicator therefore monitors both how much WEEE is collected compared to the electric and electronic equipment put on the market (as an indication for the collection effectivity) and compares the collection amounts against the collection target in the WEEE Directive, and the progress towards reuse and recycling of this waste.
The indicator shows the amount of WEEE that has been put on the market, collected in total, collected from private households and reused and recycled in European countries, stated in kg/capita. The figures are related to the collection target of 4 kg/capita/year. Development over time is shown for WEEE collected from households and WEEE reused and recycled.
kg / cap / year
Separate collection of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and its subsequent recovery and treatment in an environmentally sound manner help achieve not only reduction of environmental impacts, but also better resource efficiency. In order to address these issues, the EC Directive 2002/96/EC (WEEE Directive) introduced producer responsibility for WEEE and set a target for collection of WEEE as well as targets for recovery and for reuse and recycling. The revised WEEE Directive (2012/19/EU), published in July 2012, sets more ambitious targets for collection based on the weight of electric and electronic equipment (EEE) put on the market, defines staged recovery and recycling targets and extends the scope of EEE covered by the regulation.
Collection targets according to WEEE Directive 2002/6/EC:
New collection targets laid down in the recast WEEE Directive (2012/19/EU) (with options for derogations for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia):
Reuse, recycling, recovery targets according to WEEE Directive 2002/96/EC:
Recovery targets according to Art. 11 of the recast WEEE Directive (2012/19/EU):
In order to calculate the per capita value for the four data types each data type was divided by the numbers of inhabitants for each country and multiplied with 1000 to convert tonnes into kg.
No gap filling was applied
No methodology references available.
None specified.
For 2006 data on total WEEE collection and WEEE collection from households is available for only 22 EEA countries. Information on total reuse and recycling of WEEE is available for 19 EEA countries.
For 2008 data on total WEEE collection is available for 27 EEA countries and WEEE collection from households is available for 27 EEA countries. Information on total reuse and recycling of WEEE is available for 26 EEA countries.
Please note that figures for Italy and for Bulgaria are changed compared to figures available at Eurostat: Bulgaria reported 10 times more WEEE collected than EEE put on the market in 2008, and Italy reported a higher amount of WEEE collected only from households. However, more reliable data from the quality reports the countries submitted to Eurostat were obtained and these were used in the indicator. In Figure 1, the data on EEE put on market reported by the Netherlands to Eurostat has been removed as they were reported in a non-comparable format. According to the information provided by the country in the quality report submitted to Eurostat it was a combination of pieces of items and tonnage.
Not relevant since the indicator matches the definition of the European Commission.
Work specified here requires to be completed within 1 year from now.
Work specified here will require more than 1 year (from now) to be completed.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/waste-electrical-and-electronic-equipment or scan the QR code.
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