June 2024

Product Circularity and EPR

Recycling of WEEE to capture valuable secondary raw materials is an integral step in realising circularity of products, which plays a major role in increasing brand value and development of future business models. A key circularity success factor for WEEE recycling is for Producers to successfully complete the requisite compliance steps to ensure correct takeback and financing of end-of-life devices not suitable for repair or re-use. Poor or incomplete Producer Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) compliance, weak incentives, insufficient understanding, and lack of support can all risk undermining the effectiveness of the system. Providing Producer compliance solutions is integral to ensuring that this stage of the circular economy functions well and support the whole process and achieve circularity goals.

In a well-functioning WEEE EPR Compliance system, a mix of policy and economic instruments should incentivise improved circularity of WEEE, discourage free-riding, and support the spirit of intention of the Polluter-Pays-Principle. To successfully comply, Producers need affordable and efficient operational tools, good quality information that is readily accessible, and consistency in the requirements, in order to implement internal management systems to meet their WEEE EPR obligations.

In this 2024 Electronics Goes Green conference presentation, EARN explored common Producer challenges to WEEE EPR compliance informs available solutions when we consider future requirements on circular economy business models. goals with tailored consulting and advice.

To garner the Producer perspective of WEEE EPR compliance, 40 Producers who meet their EPR obligations, and hence have familiarity and experience with compliances processes, were surveyed anonymously. Their overall experience with WEEE compliance across Europe, what challenges they encounter, how information is sourced, how much work time is available for WEEE compliance, how data is sourced and managed, and their opinions on solutions they would find helpful were all explored.

What did EARN discover?

The results demonstrate that Producers generally struggle with the lack of harmonisation in WEEE EPR requirements across Europe as well as the multitude of differences between Compliance Organisations processes and requirements. Producers must track and comply with 31 different country national laws across Europe in a perpetually shifting mosaic of complexities and differences that have become more complicated over time, resulting in significant burdens of administration, time, and financial costs, that are especially punitive and stifling to small businesses placing low volumes on several markets. Financial incentives from eco-modulation fees for more circular products are often misaligned with the reality when the financial costs, administration, and time required to qualify significantly outweigh the reward. A key challenge is confusion with interpreting how or if the requirements apply, and accessing information that is easy to follow is an ongoing issue for many. Reporting data is often challenging to manage in terms of cost and administration, with many Producers undertaking manual calculations with no correlation with organisation size.

Producers in the group typically juggle competing demands on their working time available to focus only on WEEE EPR Compliance, typically spending as little as 5-10% of their working time on related tasks, with the lion’s share of their time spent on quite different subject matters. There is no typical organisational department or job type of the main person responsible to manage WEEE EPR compliance for their organisation, demonstrating the lack of consensus of where and with whom to place this type of work within organisations.

Producers surveyed overwhelmingly included a wish to see harmonisation of the requirements, processes, and compliance costs across Europe, and centralisation of key procedures as a solution to overcoming Producer challenges with WEEE EPR compliance. Legislative instruments changing from EU Directives to EU Regulations is one pathway to achieving this, however this approach takes time. In the interim practical solutions identified in the survey results were also favoured, such as improved tools and information, as well as standardised approaches to data management that are achievable and affordable. Given how little time aside from their other duties Producers reporting having available to spend on WEEE Compliance, and with the complexity they generally find the WEEE EPR compliance system to be, it is unsurprising that a majority of Producers surveyed expressed a need for external assistance as a fundamental measure to meet their compliance obligations.

Our conclusions?

WEEE Producers create products we rely on in our daily life and supporting them by providing the administrative, information, and data management solutions they need to effectively and efficiently fulfil their Producer obligations, thereby supports WEEE collection and recycling to realise improved progress to achieving circularity goals.

EPR regulations in Europe for WEEE, as well as other waste streams, such as Batteries, Packaging, and Textiles, continue to develop, and so the compliance obligations for Producers and associated challenges also grows. As new innovative electronic products develop, some may not fit the current definition of WEEE. This can generate new challenges for Producers by creating confusion over whether their product must comply with WEEE rules, disrupt budgeting, and may require seeking unique compliance solutions if recycling via traditional routes with collective schemes is not available due to the novel nature of the product. This scenario may potentially also jeopardize improving achievement of circularity goals if the products are outside of scope of WEEE definitions and therefore not collected for recycling. Given technology development often outstrips the law, future versions of Waste regulations should ideally incorporate more broad scope definitions in anticipation of new categories of electronic products.

Providing solutions for the compliance challenges Producers face is a crucial prerequisite for developing an effective and economically viable circular economy in the near future. Until centralised and standardised approaches from policy leaders are realised, cooperation with players such as compliance consulting services, WEEE collection and management, repair workshops, and professional WEEE recycling companies, are essential to filling the gap and improve value added for all entities involved.

If you would like to know more about how EARN can help you overcome the challenges of implementing and managing EPR compliance solutions, let us know!