One month before companies are required by the EU to accept returns of waste, electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), Fujitsu Siemens Computers provided an update on progress to date at its own Recycling Center in Paderborn, Germany. With over 15 years of experience in environmentally responsible production and recycling, the leading European IT vendor and German market leader is confident that it is well prepared for the WEEE Directive, an EU-wide regulation regarding the handling of old electrical and electronic equipment.
“Companies slow in gearing up for this directive are now under enormous time pressure and are forced to pay dearly for expertise,” explained Peter Esser, executive vice president Volume Products & Supply Operations at Fujitsu Siemens Computers. “We profit from the fact that we developed a universal environmental protection concept for the entire product lifecycle in the early 1990’s and systematically applied it.”
EU-wide WEEE regulations
As of August 13, 2005, all manufacturers and importers in the EU will be obligated to take back waste electrical equipment, and EU member states have consequently adopted national WEEE legislation. Germany, for example, passed “ElektroG” (the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act), in March. The legislation calls for the reuse and recycling rates to reach at least 75 percent by the end of 2006. The Fujitsu Siemens Computers Recycling Center, which has been taking back and recycling used systems since 1988, already manages a 98-percent ratio today.
All this experience is proving quite valuable as the company implements the WEEE Directive throughout Europe. Working closely with its experts in Paderborn, Fujitsu Siemens Computers has signed contracts with local logistics and recycling partners in the various countries. The central Recycling Center will in addition handle equipment from business customers.
Professional PCs: RoHS-compliant by January
As of July 1, 2006, the EU’s RoHS Directive (restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment) prohibits the sale in all member states of devices which exceed stringent limits for content of a variety of dangerous substances, including lead, mercury and cadmium. Here again, Fujitsu Siemens Computers is fully prepared and will even meet RoHS criteria as early as January. Back in 1992, the company established its first internal guidelines for environmentally conscious design. The Augsburg plant’s nine production lines produce 2.4 million internally developed PC mainboards annually. Six of these lines have already been converted to lead-free soldering, and green mainboards now represent 40 percent of total production. All models in the company’s recently introduced ESPRIMO Professional PC range will comply with RoHS as of this coming January, with all consumer products slated to follow by the end of spring.
