You are in: Home > Press office > Press Releases Archive > Press Releases 2005 > 039/2005
Press Release 039/2005
Joint Press Release with Stiftung Elektro-Altgeräte Register® (EAR) and the Federal Environment Agency (UBA)
New territory in environmental policy: More responsibility born by industry, less by state
Public private partnership for implementation of Electrical and Electronic Appliances Act (ElektroG)
Politics and the industry have entered new environmental policy territory. The act governing the sale, return, and environmentally sound disposal of electrical and electronic equipment (ElektroG) entered into force in March 2005. Its objective is to recycle used electrical-electronic equipment and to promote more ecological design of such devices. What is special about the Act is that industry will in part be responsible for transposing it. Under the new legislation, the competencies of registration and organization as assigned per law to the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) have been passed on to a clearing house for manufacturers of such appliances. The Stiftung Elektro-Altgeräte Register (EAR) foundation in Fürth, which was founded for the sole purpose of implementing ElektroG, will act as the clearing house and has administrative powers. The assumption of product responsibility by manufacturers is completely novel and in keeping with the principle of sustainable manufacturer responsibility. “More manufacturer responsibility, less state--that is the core of the innovative message“, said Prof. Dr. Andreas Troge, UBA President. EAR Chairman Hartmut Theusner added, “EAR is the culmination of the implementation of the concept, which is essentially about the involvement of affected companies in the economic and technical issues of the policy. We have instituted lean management whereby we want to reduce information flow to an absolute minimum on the one hand and relieve the workload of competent authorities on the other.” However, the state is not passing on all of its responsibilities. The UBA’s function as supervisor of legal and professional matters will ensure through EAR that tasks are performed in compliance with the law.
As clearing house the EAR foundation will assume tasks such as:
- Registration of manufacturers and importers without which electronic appliances may not enter the market
- Designation of collection of used equipment from municipal collection points. This is to ensure that every manufacturer fulfils its obligation to dispose of equipment in correlation to its market share.
EAR processes are virtually all electronic in nature, ranging from (online) communication to management of internal affairs. EAR will operate a computer center to record manufacturers’ individual obligations and will act as liaison office for the collection points operated by waste disposal companies. In addition to providing a highly cost-efficient solution, this also achieves short handling times for standardized processes.
The ever faster and shorter-lived cycles of innovation are creating mountains of used electronic equipment waste. This is a waste of precious resources if the electronic scrap is not recycled. Every year municipalities collect some 300,000-400,000 tons of used equipment from consumers whilst manufacturers sell that volume in new appliances many times over.
Another problem is that most used electrical equipment contains a range of substances (e.g. various heavy metals) which may burden mankind and the environment if released unchecked. The European Union has responded to these ecological problems and formulated two directives whose objectives are: firstly, to reduce pollutant input from electrical equipment; secondly, to save resources by recycling used equipment. The Electrical and Electronic Appliances Act transposes these EU directives into German law.
Note: The http://www.umweltbundesamt.de website offers a background paper on the new legislation (see Elektrogesetz). Additional information on the Act is also available from the Federal Ministry for Environment at http://www.bmu.de under “Waste Management”. The EAR foundation web site is at http://www.stiftung-ear.de (in German).
Dessau-Roßlau/Fürth, 21 July 2005
EAR contact:
Alexander Goldberg
Legal adviser, EAR
Benno-Strauß-Str. 5
90763 Fürth
Telefon: 0911 766650
Email: info@stiftung-ear.de