(Finance) – The European Commission adopted today a series of recommendations addressed to Member States to increase and encourage the return of mobile phones, tablets, laptops and related used battery chargers. The recommendations aim to help national authorities improve the level of collection and, subsequently, reuse, repair, refurbishment and recovery of these small electronic devices when they become waste.
“There are more than 700 million old telephones in our drawers, almost two for every inhabitant of the EU. Citizens often find it difficult to decide what to do with them. We can make the methods clearer and simpler return, repair and recycling of such products,” he commented Virginijus SinkeviciusCommissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries.
“The recommendations adopted today focus on effective measures and incentives to increase the collection rate of small electronic products across the EU, giving them a second life – he added – This is a win-win solution: citizens can benefit in various ways, while the circular economy grows and we all preserve important raw materials”.
Among the policy recommendations, some concern: financial incentives such as discounts, vouchers, deposit return schemes or cash rewards; carrying out actions awareness and improved convenience and visibility of collection points where people can return small electronic products; the supply of envelopes or labels prepay consumers to return their small electronic devices; the creation of partnerships between re-use organizations and take-back system operators and setting targets for re-use and preparation for re-use.