5th International Weee Forum Conference held in Malta

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The Weee Forum has celebrated its 15 anniversary during a special conference held in Malta last 26 and 27 April. Since 2002 the Weee Forum compliance schemes have worked on behalf of over 16.000 producers of electrical appliances to collect, recycle and recover to the highest treatment standards more than 17.4 million tons of waste electrical and electronic equipment. In doing so, the Weee Forum compliance schemes have worked alongside the producers and recycling operators towards the development of a European economy that is more resource efficient and sustainable but further progress needs to be made for a circular economy to become a reality. Ceced Europe participated at the event in Malta underlining the vital contribution the home appliance sector could continue to make as well as what it had already achieved over many years. In his speech, Paolo Falcioni, Ceced Europe director-general, addressed key e-waste actors from across Europe, emphasizing the various tools available to encourage resource efficiency and circularity. «Market forces, competitiveness and innovation – he explained – were key to unlock the sector’s future potential for the three stages in question: product creation; product use; recycling and reuse of material resources. Across the industry, there are many different approaches that all deliver circularity: targeting at-source waste production, i.e. reducing the quantity of material used in the creation of products and increasing the efficiency with which products, once created, are used; using more sustainable alternative materials (irrespective of quantity) and/or extending product lifetime (including repair /refurbishment allowing for re-use); and/or undertaking actions at end-of-life, such as recycling or recovery.» Paolo Falcioni also reminded his audience of the very considerable investments and efforts the home appliance industry had made over many years taking care of an estimated annual 3.2million tons of Weee.