On 8 August 2011, the European Commission received a notification from the French Environment Ministry under the so-called 98/34 procedure regarding a draft decree on the prevention and management of waste furniture. Under this procedure, any draft national rules imposing technical requirements on producers that go further than EU rules on the same topic, must be reported to and cleared by the Commission. This is done so as to prevent unjustified barriers to trade within the EU’s internal market.

The draft decree, which goes beyond the EU’s waste laws and producer obligations, builds on the 2007 commitments from France’s environmental “Grenelle” forum, and seeks to beef up waste management, including the collection, removal and treatment, of waste furniture. Hong Kong, China traders should be alerted to the draft establishing the principle of extended producer responsibility (EPR) for the prevention and management of end-of-life furniture.

Furniture is understood to mean moveable property and its constituent parts belonging to at least one of the following categories: living room/lounge/dining room furniture, occasional furniture, bedroom furniture, bedding, general office furniture, kitchen furniture, bathroom furniture, garden furniture, chairs, and also studio or commercial furniture, and furniture for organisations. Decorative items, however, would fall outside the scope of the decree.

Under the current French proposal, “marketers” (the word includes manufacturers and importers) would have to arrange for the collection, removal and treatment of furniture at the end of their life cycle. Furthermore, marketers would be required to take preventive measures to reduce the quantity and harmfulness of waste furniture, as well as maintain the possibility of re-use. A re-use and recycling target of 45% for waste household furniture and 75% for waste workplace furniture would have to be complied with by 2015.

The separate collection and treatment, free of charge for users, could be conducted either individually by marketers themselves or by signing up to an approved scheme through a recovery organisation. In any event, the latter would not be able to charge over €5 a tonne for the waste to be eliminated. Marketers would also be required until 1 January 2016 to include the unit costs of managing waste furniture in their invoices.

In addition, the draft decree imposes tough penalties on marketers for non-compliance with its provisions. Non-participation in recovery organisations and subsequent failure to arrange for the collection and management of waste entails fines of as much as €750 for individuals and €3,750 for legal entities per tonne of waste collected.

Hong Kong, China traders may already be aware that the current notification procedure falls within the ambit of EU Directive 98/34/EC (formerly 83/189/EEC) on the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations. This Directive imposes an obligation upon Member States to notify to the Commission, and to each other, all the draft technical regulations concerning products before they are adopted as national law.

The aim is to provide transparency and control with regard to those regulations since they could create unjustified barriers within the EU. The Commission and other Member States have a limited period (the “standstill period”, during which the adoption procedure is frozen) to comment on the draft law from the date of the notification.

The present draft has until 9 November 2011 to be commented on by the Commission or other Member States. However, this can be further extended by another three months.

Hong Kong, China traders can find a copy of the notification as well as an English translation of the draft decree at:

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/tris/pisa/app/search/index.cfm?fuseaction=pisa_notif_overview&iYear=2011&inum=423&lang=EN&sNLang=EN

and

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/tris/pisa/app/search/index.cfm?fuseaction=getdraft&inum=1705804