Förutsättningar och hinder för att minska elektronikavfall : En studie över hur WEEE-direktivet påverkar Sveriges förebyggande åtgärder mot elektronikavfall

Sammanfattning: To meet the growing amount of waste from electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) EU developed, year 2002, a directive (2002/96/EG) with the objective to govern the management and reduce the amount of WEEE. The directive is based on producer responsibility which makes the producer responsible for collection and dispose of WEEE. In 2012 a new revised directive (2012/19/EU), with tougher collection targets, was developed. Both the old and the new directive states that the approach to tackle WEEE should be prioritized in order of prevention, reuse and then recycling. Hitherto the amounts of WEEE has increased every year, making it relevant to examine which type of preventive measures the directive contains and how effective they are. I have also examined how the EU wants Member States to interpret and promote the measures of reuse and also discussed the consumption and production of electronic products in the context sustainable development. The study is mainly a literature review in which scientific articles and books on environmental policy have been used to create theoretical framework. In order to study how the prevention and reuse has worked out in practice five interviews has been conducted with actors that are working with issues related to the context of WEEE and electronic recycling. The study shows that all of the preventive measures outlined in the directive are linked to the stage of manufacture in productdesign where eco-design is a well-known and broad field. The empirical material in this study also shows that reuse is an implicit section in the directive with no clear strategy of how to implement it. The general conclusion is that the preventive measures on a large scale have been absent and that the outcomes from the measures that have been implemented have not met the objectives. The reason why reuse is difficult to promote is primarily explained by that there are obstacles in terms of laws and regulations that make the measures of reuse hard to implement in the Member States.