The European Commission is seeking to loosen or completely eliminate the need to remove hydrocarbons from waste electrical equipment, which up until now was part of the WEEE Directive.The RAL Quality Assurance Association (QAA) has written to Stavros Dimas, the EU commissioner for the environment, criticising the commission's plans and explaining that the proposed changes would have a negative impact on the environment and on climate-protection goals.
In December 2008, the European Commission published its proposed amendments to the WEEE Directive.
At the time, the RAL QAA welcomed the fact that these proposals contained no changes to the directive requirements regarding the treatment of waste refrigeration appliances that contain hydrocarbons.
However, RAL was astonished to learn that attempts are now being made to use the Technical Adaptation Committee (TAC), which meets in closed session, to completely eliminate the need to remove hydrocarbons from waste refrigeration equipment.
A commission document that was sent to the members of the TAC for discussion in December 2008 contained the following passage: 'The following items could be considered to be deleted from Annex II: hydrocarbons - as they have a global warming potential below 15, for which extraction and treatment would not be environmentally beneficial.' From a scientific point of view, the commission's proposal is unacceptable and should be rejected.
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