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The world's high volumes of trash are the real mandate for RoHS and WEEE.

Many eminent scholars and authors have written detailed analyses about the RoHS and WEEE legislation encircling the globe. The theme is the same, even if the content varies slightly from place to place. We have all become environmentally aware.

When I started writing this column, I decided to leave the subject of RoHS/WEEE to others. But now I feel I need to comment. The reason: I perceive that WEEE has become almost subsidiary to RoHS. In fact, it is as important, and should receive the attention it deserves.

For more than four years the Japanese have been operating under a form of RoHS and have had to adopt WEEE by necessity. They have far less room than most to dig holes in the ground and bury unwanted electronics - let alone any other waste. However, rather than treat this as a problem, they adopted the sensible approach of looking for opportunities. Marketing came to the fore and overall factory efficiency won back the perceived losses due to the need to restrict various substances - notably lead in solders. Products are sold under the environmentally friendly banner, at a slight premium in some cases, but the public was won over and the Japanese are still in business - possibly stronger than ever.

As populations increase, and we disassociate ourselves with the amount of waste we create, we forget just how much of a problem it has become. Thirty years ago mobile phones were a novelty development, expected to be a business tool. Thirty years ago few of us had the electronic gadgets in our homes that we now take for granted. Thirty years ago, the few electronic things that ended up in the waste stream were not seen as detrimental. We now have a consumer society that is electronically minded and enormous quantities of products will end up sooner, rather than later, as waste. We have no choice but to adopt RoHS/WEEE styles of legislation.

RoHS is a single market directive in Europe. It is the same everywhere in every European state and has no precedent. It was easy for the various governments to copy the legislation without fear of condemnation. The same is not true of WEEE. Many states had already adopted their own form of WEEE before the legislation hit the statute books. Some states, for example Cyprus, have adopted it completely but others, for example the U.K., did not agree to it initially and have delayed full transposition of the EU directive into national law. It was hoped that all states would be ready to transpose the law by August 2005 but there have been many delays, with the U.K. being the worst offender.

Of course, this causes difficulty for any company or state exporting into Europe. (In the U.S., a Website set up by the government's export department, www.buyusa.gov, lists the organizations in each European state that give advice on WEEE.)

We have to be able to define a term that describes the importer or manufacturer and so RoHS and WEEE both define a "Producer" as any person who, irrespective of the selling technique used, including by means of distance communication according to directive 97/7/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of the 20th of May 20, 1997, on the protection of consumers in respect of distance contracts:

• Manufactures and sells electrical and electronic equipment under their own brand.

• Resells under their own brand equipment produced by other suppliers, a reseller not being regarded as the "producer" if the brand of the producer appears on the equipment.

• Imports or exports electrical and electronic equipment on a professional basis into a member state.

What does the definition mean? It is an attempt to label the culprits of any misdemeanors but it is also subject to the vagaries of the interpretations of the EU directives. Almost all the states require that the "Producer" hold a legal presence in the country in which they will sell or promote their products; e.g., a bank account, a VAT account and any other legal entity that shows a fixed presence. Generally, though, the "Producer" is actually the importer, distributor or agent of the product in question. Therefore, a culprit is likely to be a local distributor even though they are very unlikely to have any influence over the way in which the product is designed for end-of-life.

Many distributors handle a variety of products from many sources and usually choose to register for WEEE in their own right because they sell large varieties of EEE. This is no comfort for an importer. Many of us buy products via the Internet. This is classified as distance selling but it has no link whatsoever to a local distributor. Internet sales vary by company but the trend must be an increase in sales worldwide over the coming decade. A Producer may innocently work with their distributor to register in a particular country for WEEE but find that Internet sales distort the overall product delivery figures in that country. Worse, the Producer may not have registered or have a distributor in a country, believing that there should be no sales there, and then find that there are, in fact, considerable sales over the Internet.

The EU is still grappling with this problem. Many European states are trying to introduce laws permitting foreign companies to register in their own names to get around the legal issues of distance selling.

Originally, the EU wanted WEEE regulations to be the governing factor of waste disposal for the future but because this spawned the RoHS directive, WEEE effectively took a backseat to RoHS. The deadline for RoHS has passed, therefore, we must concentrate on WEEE and make sure that we do not just dump unwanted EEE.

It would be all be well and good were the RoHS pushback campaign to succeed, but the problem will not go away. We must adopt RoHS and then WEEE. Even if pushback achieves a six-month breathing space it will more likely give the waverers an opportunity to relax until the last minute again. Then, what about the other legislations on the way? We will be faced with legislation covering Energy-using Products and electronic batteries in the near future. If we have to combine all these statutes into one, because of pushback, there will be too much legislation to handle and there may be chaos with no desired result.

While I agree with the basic tenet of pushback, I feel it is a lost cause. We should become as efficient as possible as soon as possible. It may mean that we have to accept that some things are seasonal.

I am old enough to remember that some foods were seasonal, for example, strawberries were once only available in the U.K. in June, when Wimbledon tennis was the main attraction. Those strawberries had taste. Now we have tons of strawberries from all over the world year-round but they do not taste the same. We may have to sacrifice constant availability for a society with values again. The analogy to RoHS/WEEE would be that we can afford to sacrifice the desire to merely dump unwanted EEE in favor of the goal of avoiding further contamination of our waste sites, and we should also consider the self-sacrifice of properly adopting RoHS now so that we can concentrate on the marketing influences of a RoHS society.

Pompous? You decide.

Peter Grundy is director of P G Engineering (Sussex) Ltd. and ITM Consulting (itmconsulting.org); peter.grundy2@btinternet.com. His column appears semimonthly.

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